Song of the Invisible Boy
by DavidB226Morris
Summary: Tommy Grayson had so much drama in his real life that he had no desire for any in his extracurricular activities. But somewhere in his spirit, the ghost of a performer lived.
1. Prologue

**Song of the Invisible Boy**

**A Story In The Glee Universe**

**By DavidB226Morris**

_Summary: Tommy Grayson had so much drama in his real life that he had no desire for any in his extracurricular activities. But somewhere in his spirit, the ghost of a performer lived. One day, he decided to let it out. And that changed his life forever._

_Disclaimer: The teachers and students at McKinley High belong to Ryan Murphy and all of the gifted writers and creators at Ryan Murphy productions. I'm just borrowing them and hope I can do them justice. Tommy and his family belong to me. Any resemblance to anyone in TV is purely coincidental._

_Introduction: I can't imagine this hasn't been done before in some form, but here's my spiel. This story will take place at McKinley High during the eventful Season 2 of Glee. Though I intend to use the members of New Directions fairly frequently, in essence, this is a story about an original character I've had in the back of my mind for the last few months. Some characters on this show are going to take a little heat, based on some of my personal views on their characters. I ask for the patience and clarity of my fellow readers. I also ask that you be kind as this is my first real attempt at Glee fanfic._

_Also, I'm going to be quoting more than a few songs, but having never done songfic, I don't know the procedure. I intend to quote the artist at whenever I feel it necessary._

_Review early and often, but try to be gentle._

**Prologue**

The idea that when you grow up, life is completely different from high school is one that your fellow teachers press upon on just about every student.

It's total bullshit.

Real life is exactly like high school. It doesn't matter what you accomplish in the real world- you could come up with a cure for cancer, develop the next IPod, have your own sitcom. If you are ranked as a jock or a nerd when you get started, that's pretty much where you stay for the rest of your life. The few who manage to escape this social jungle intact, will find themselves dealing with the problems for college, and whatever your life is. Even if you have a great gift for something, it will often be buried under the detritus of life that surrounds you. How many John Lennon's, Ted Williams', and Franklin Roosevelt's have never had their talents seen because of the indifference of the society around them? If we hear a mermaid singing, would we know if it was singing for you?

For every Rachel Berry or Quinn Fabray in the world - the ones determined to stand out in a crowd, there are dozens of others who are just as talented, but because of their position in society, they don't risk letting their talents flourish.

Tommy Grayson might have spent the rest of his time at McKinley being one of those people. But unlike them, he chose to remain invisible. It suited his temperament. He'd had enough drama early on in his life to know that he didn't want any in a place he was required to spend seven hours a day at. And though none of the members of New Directions really gave him a moment's thought (which was particularly ironic, for reasons you will soon discover), they probably would have all traded places with him in a heartbeat. Who wouldn't trade being slushied every day for months on end for being completely ignored?

This had not happened by chance. Long before he had entered McKinley as a freshman, Tommy had managed to get through the last four years of public education becoming nearly invisible. In an era where social media has completely taken over the lives of just about everybody, Tommy had done his level best to remain a complete cipher. He used the internet for every purpose but socializing, and when he talked about anything online, he used a screen name that bore absolutely no relation to anything about it. Most of his entertainments were solitary ones. He managed all B's and A's on his report card, but participated the absolute minimum in any single class. His I.Q. level was in the genius range, but he stayed out of the AP and Magnet classes in junior high and McKinley. He knew as well as anyone the dangers of being considered an intellect.

He received a lot of abuse and name calling his first three months at McKinley, but eventually it ended, when he didn't react at all. When there are easier targets, a bully eventually moves on. It also helped matters that his face was almost always perpetually buried in either a notebook or a normal book, and that, for someone his age, he was freakishly tall. He didn't complain to teachers, didn't bother other students, didn't visit Miss Pillsbury. The educational system is designed to deal with the squeaky wheel rather than the ones that run silent without any noticeable effort.

Left to his own devices, Tommy might have managed to live out his entire career at McKinley completely invisible. What nobody seemed to realize was that Tommy was not a shrinking violet. He just played one in high school. But eventually there comes a time when even the most invisible man needs some kind of release. And Tommy was gifted.

Very gifted.

Tommy loved his grandparents for reasons that will become very clear soon enough, but one of the reasons he loved them the most was that his grandmother had a piano. She had been good enough at other things not to make it her primary occupation, but it was more than a hobby to her. And she was gifted enough to know that her grandson was at least as good as her, if not a little better.

Had Tommy decided to make the piano his life, he probably could have become a prodigy, but as good as he was, he had other passions, which his grandparents nourished as good grandparents should. But he still played a lot. It was that ability that got him into trouble.

It didn't seem like trouble at first. Three months into his act as the Invisible Boy, Miss Pillsbury somewhat reluctantly pulled him into her office. Not inclined to take seriously a guidance counselor who _clearly _had more problems than he did, he responded to her about the same way he did to the majority of people at McKinley- indifference, with vague assurances that he was 'fine the way things were, and didn't feel the need to expand his social circle.

Unfortunately, too much had happened at high schools and college campuses over the last decade for people to just accept these mild assurances. Since the last thing his reputation needed was to be considered the next potential Uni-bomber, he agreed- somewhat reluctantly- to join the school orchestra. Orchestra, at McKinley, was a euphemism for a piano, three violins, two trumpets, and one drum set. (Most of the budget for the band was co-opted by the Cheerios, and there were limits to just how much Kool-Aid Tommy was willing to drink.)

For the remainder of his freshman year, everything went surprisingly well. Even though he was clearly the most gifted musician, he rarely showed off. The other musicians became colleagues (even here he wasn't prepared to call them friends), and he was part of something. They didn't probe too deeply into his life, and for that he was grateful.

Considering how abominably the residents of show choir were treated almost from day one, one would have expected the orchestra at least as much abuse. It just didn't turn out that way for Tommy and his fellow musicians. Part of it may have come from the same reason that most of show choir basically ignored them even though, to paraphrase Vidal Sassoon, if they don't sound good, we don't sound good. Other people might have been insulted by this indifference. Tommy didn't mind it at all, and neither did any of the others. You didn't need to see more than one Slushy to be grateful for invisibility.

It _did _hurt not to be credited by the only people who might consider them peers. It was not easy to keep up with the eclectic musical tastes of New Directions - it would've been impossible in just about any other group with a bigger budget- but they managed to do so in an exceptional fashion. With all the hue and cry about their triumph at Sectionals, no one had even bothered to thank them for everything they did, from fall until summer came. Tommy knew better than most that asking for gratitude from anybody was something that was never going to happen. But it did sting, and more than a little.

Then again, considering all of the drama that played out in the year of 2009-2010- the pregnancy, the romances, the defections, the departures- you would've had to light yourself on fire to get yourself noticed. And that wasn't the kind of thing that Tommy was capable of, much less any of his fellow musicians.

So after everything that happened when Tommy's junior year began, he was relieved that when _ubernerd _Jacob did his little video, he was completely ignored. It suited his temperament very well, and he was willing to spend his junior year being completely ignored by New Directions, the Cheerios and the majority of the student body.

The thing was, the people he played with knew him a little better than that majority. They knew there was more to him than being the man who played piano, and kept relatively silent unless forced to talk in class. Getting him to show that side of him was like trying to find Waldo, but it was there. Waiting. He just needed to find the opportunity.

When it happened, he would spend much of 2010 hating and thanking the boys (and girls) in the band.


	2. Chapter 1: Auditions

**Chapter 1**

**Auditions**

About two weeks after his junior year began, Tommy was beginning to settle into his routine. Part of that routine meant getting to school about an hour before everybody else so he and the rest of the orchestra could get a handle on the music they were probably going to have to play for the rest of the year. Though they'd never tell the members of show choir, it was harder then it seemed to just begin playing the numbers that New Directions wanted. Not that they would say it aloud.

Tommy couldn't wait to get out of the house some mornings to school. There weren't a lot of people who couldn't understand why. He had no intention of making things clearer.

"So here we are again," Joshua, the second violinist said. "Looks like it's the same old, same old."

"You know, I didn't even know there _were _any crackhouses in town," Kerri the drummer said. "How the hell did Rachel Berry know?"

"That is a question I don't want to think about too much," Tommy told them. "All I know is I'm not going to piss her off."

"No respect. A year of doing what they do, and it's like they're invisible," Josh replied.

"Trust me. Invisible people don't get drowned in sugar," Tommy told them. "They _wish_ they were invisible."

"Says the chameleon," Kerri replied.

"Besides, haven't you heard what the world thinks," Tommy said. "Change isn't something we can believe in."

They smiled, though Tommy wasn't sure if his comment went over his friends heads. He never explained himself.

"Anyway, we've got our own work to do," he told them. "Let's get started."

Because everybody respected his talent, the other musicians were willing to tolerate some of the quirks that Tommy had, such as the fact that he consider half of current music intolerable, and that he never watched _American Idol. _(He had mentioned more than once that he considered Ryan Seacrest 'a ferret" and Simon Cowell, "House without the charm,") They were gifted enough that they needed to hear a song once in order to play it, but halfway through the year, Tommy realized that he was going to have to work a lot harder or he'd be holding everybody back. So they split the difference - forty-five minutes of catching up on Top 40, and fifteen minutes in which they did their own thing, which was code for music more Tommy's speed.

So after spending enough time getting through Beyonce, Kenny Chesney and Pink, they allowed him to work through music that he called 'classic' and New Directions called 'old'.

_**Ohhh, look at all the lonely people**_

_**Ohhh, look at all the lonely people**_

He didn't sing all the time, just for the songs he felt passionate about.

_**Eleanor Rigby**_

_**Picks up the rice in a church where a wedding has been**_

_**Lives in a dream.**_

_**Waits at the window**_

_**Storing her face in a jar that she keeps by the door.**_

_**Who is it for?**_

_**All the lonely people, where do they all come from?**_

_**All the lonely people, where do they all belong?**_

_**Father McKenzie**_

_**Writing the words of a sermon that no one will hear.**_

_**No one comes near.**_

_**Look at him working,**_

_**Darning his socks in the night as he watches the air.**_

_**What does he care?**_

_**All the lonely people, where do they all come from?**_

_**All the lonely people, where do they all belong?**_

_**Ohhh, look at all the lonely people.**_

_**Ohhh, look at all the lonely people.**_

_**Eleanor Rigby,**_

_**Died in the church and was buried along with her name.**_

_**Nobody came.**_

_**Father McKenzie,**_

_**Wiping his hands of the dirt as he walks from the grave,**_

_**No one was saved.**_

_**All the lonely people, where do they all come from?**_

_**All the lonely people, where do they all belong?**_

As was so often the case, he had gone inside his head as he did whenever he was performing.

It took him a few seconds to realize what had become clear to the rest of the orchestra.

"You're really good."

Tommy did his best to never appear surprised, and indeed he shouldn't have been. Rachel was almost always here earlier or later than the rest of Glee club.

"Does that mean you're going to send me to a crack house, too?"

It was a cheap shot, and he was sorry he'd said it the minute it was out of his mouth. The fact was, apart from Mr. Schuster discovering him, this was his greatest fear.

"It does seem kind of stupid. We've been playing together for more than a year, and I never even knew that you were that good." She hesitated. "Tom, right?"

Again, he shouldn't have been that surprised. Of all the people in New Directions, Rachel was the only one who might take the trouble to remember the names of the people who made her sound good.

"You're in fifth period History with me."

"So you noticed."

"You're always reading, and you don't try to hide it." Rachel admitted. "I don't know why Mr. Ryan doesn't do anything about it."

"Because I'm passing," Tommy looked at her. "Can we please stop pretending that this is about homework?"

"Like I said, you're really good, and you don't care what other people think about you," Rachel hesitated. "Is there a reason you've been satisfied just playing music for us?'

And here it was. The conversation he'd been trying to avoid for the last year. He turned to his fellow musicians. "Could you give us a minute?"

He got up from the piano. "I like to think I perform a vital service for you and the rest of the group. Besides, I've gone half my time at this school, and I haven't pasted a target on my back. Can you give me a good reason why I should do otherwise?"

He waited to see what kind of argument Rachel would make, figuring she'd make a personal plea about wanting to belong, or something more self-involved, like how it would probably help them win Nationals.

"You obviously like your privacy," she said instead. "But there has to be some part of you that likes performing, or you'd be doing it at home instead of here."

There was a fragment of truth there. Why _had_ he been giving what amounted to concerts for over a year?

"I'm not much of a team player," he countered. "Playing in the orchestra aside, I don't particularly get along with other people."

Rachel raised her eyebrow. "You _have_ been present at almost every meeting last year, right?" she said with a suggestion of humor. "Half of Glee is diva central, and that's not counting my charming personality."

"There's a pool in the orchestra on who and when someone snaps," Tommy countered.

"You actually bet on... forget it," Rachel told him. "If you find it so irritating, why are you playing in the first place?"

"Rachel, if you hadn't known about my inner Springsteen, you wouldn't talk to me."

"That's not entirely fair..."

"What are the names of my fellow violinists? When was the last time you even asked any of us what time it was, let alone what kind of music we might want to play? Some of us have hopes and dreams of our own."

Tommy wasn't entirely proud to say that he took a little pleasure in seeing Rachel dismayed.

"This was a mistake. I'm sorry I bothered you." Rachel turned around, and began to walk away.

Tommy was never entirely sure what made him get off the stage and follow her.

"Rachel, wait." He took a moment. "I realize I'm not being particularly fair, but you have to understand, it's sort of a package deal. If I join Glee, doesn't that mean you lose a vital part of your musical backup?"

"We've been living hand to mouth since we got started," Rachel told him. "I don't know where we'd get the money to pay for costumes. But you've been in the same room, you know how difficult it is for all of us. We've handled tougher problems before, and we will again."

That hadn't exactly been his strongest argument, so he went a little deeper. "On my best days, I'm so prickly that I bet I could make Santana blush."

"I seriously doubt that." Having heard some of the things Santana had said over the past year, he could believe her skepticism. "Besides, they accept me, and I'm nearly as bad."

"You're giving yourself too little credit." He gave this a moment's thought. "And you're not gonna let this go, are you?"

"I royally screwed up with Charice," she admitted. "I need to make amends, and this may be my best chance to fix things. I realize that's not the best reason to ask you to do this, but it's all I have."

The truth was Tommy was one of the few people at McKinley who respected Rachel as a performer, and could understand some of her insecurities as a person. Despite the fact that she was dating Finn Hudson, she still thought she was on the fringes of everything. She needed to be good here for any kind of... anything.

Besides, all things considered, he had an issue with Mr. Schuster that he had wanted to raise for a year, and this might be his best opportunity. Hell, it might be his only opportunity.

"I have two conditions," he told her. "First one is, you don't tell any one of your friends about this for the rest of the day. When show choir meets, tell them you have somebody who wants to audition in the auditorium."

He expected her to argue this, but she didn't. "And the other?"

"When I finish my audition, and if it goes as well as you obviously think it will, I'm going to make a request. When I make it, I want you to support it."

Now Rachel seemed a little troubled. "I can't just do that without knowing what it is."

"Trust me. All I'm going to suggest is something that your club has needed for a very long time."

Tommy didn't talk to a lot of people, and even then, he wasn't perfect at things like subtlety. But he must have done a good job this time, because Rachel just nodded, and told him: "You'll be here at three-thirty?"

"I'll just need some time to go over my number." And just like that, the first bell rang. "All right, I'll see you later."

Rachel clearly didn't want to let it go, but she could see that he was serious. She began to walk away.

When she left the auditorium, Tommy walked over to the band where they were now gathering their instruments. "Remember what I talked about last year?"

"It's pretty hard to forget it," Kerri told them.

"Keep your eyes open, and your cells ready," Tommy looked back at the exit. "Let's hope that the gods are with us today."

Unfortunately, they weren't. In more ways then one.

Unlike the average high school day seems like for a teenager, this day flew by for Tommy. The way his schedule worked, he had classes with almost everybody in New Directions, but their reaction upon seeing him was the same indifference he'd worked so hard to maintain for the last year. He knew that one way or the other, none of them was going to be able to look at him the same way after this afternoon, and he still wasn't sure whether this was good or bad. All he knew was that he was probably going to stop being invisible to the kids in Glee, and perhaps to the student body.

With his nerves in an uproar, he entered the auditorium, and sat at the piano. To try and settle his jangled nerves, he played a piece of music that always relieved his body: 'Linus and Lucy', the theme music behind almost every _Peanuts _special he'd ever watched.

Around about the second movement, he became aware that the members of Glee were slowly assembling. And they sounded irritated.

"I swear, unless Rachel managed to get here, I don't know how she thinks she can make things right," Santana was telling Brittany and Quinn.

"Guys, we need to give her another chance," Finn told her. "She said that this guy came to her."

"Like Jesse did?" Mercedes was saying. "I'm just saying, Vocal Adrenaline has sent us a mole in the past. They could do it again."

"Hey, if we had a singing mole, we'd win no contest." Brittany, naturally.

"All right, Rachel, we're all present," Mr. Schuster had appeared on the stage. "Where's this great performer?"

It had taken a lot more effort than Tommy had thought it would to keep playing without interruption. When Schuster said that, he stopped, turned around, and said: "I'm right here."

The double takes and whispering would probably have been done his nervous stomach a world of good. But he had one last thing to do that he considered more important. He turned to Reese, another pianist who never performed very much because he was almost never absent, and asked: "You ready for this?"

"Are you?" Reese countered.

It was a fair question. For the first time in his life, he was going to be performing in front of an audience larger than the orchestra, and far more likely to be critical. For someone who had made his life at McKinley about _not _putting himself out there, this could be a fiasco.

_Hey, worst case scenario, you're back to making these guys look good first thing tomorrow. _It was not a charitable thought, but it had a soothing effect on his nerves. "As I'll ever be. You know what to do."

He got to his feet, and looked straight at his audience. "My name is Tom Grayson, and I've chosen 'Finishing the Hat' from Stephen Sondheim's _Sunday in the Park with George._"

Despite his best efforts, his voice had shaken a little. _Easy does it,_ he thought. _Just do like you always do. Pretend you're the performer, not yourself._

For a long moment, he just stood there. Then before any of them could engage in snark, he began:

_Yes, she looks for me._

_Good._

_Let her look for me to tell me why she left me-_

_As I always knew she would._

_I had thought she understood._

_They have never understood,_

_And no reason that they should,_

_But if anybody could..._

They were all silent.

_Finishing the hat,_

_How you have to finish the hat,_

_How you watch the rest of the world_

_from a window _

_While you finish the hat._

_Mapping out a sky,_

_What you feel like planning a sky,_

_What you feel when voices that come through the window_

_Go_

_Until they distance and die,_

_Until there's nothing but sky._

_And how you're always turning back too late_

_From the grass or the stick_

_or the dog or the light,_

_How the kind of woman willing to wait's _

_Not the kind that you want to find waiting._

_To return you to the night,_

_Dizzy from the height, _

_Coming from the hat,_

_Studying the hat,_

_Entering the world of the hat,_

_Reaching through the world of the hat._

_Like a window,_

_Back to this one from that._

_Studying a face,_

_Stepping back to look at a face_

_Leaves a little space in the way like a window,_

_But to see-_

_It's the only way to see._

_And when the woman that you wanted goes_

_You can say to yourself, "Well, I give what I give."_

_But the woman who won't wait for you knows_

_That however you live,_

_There's a part of you always standing by,_

_Mapping out the sky,_

_Finishing a hat,_

_Starting on a hat,_

_Finishing a hat..._

_Look, I made a hat_

_Where there never was a hat._

Tommy had read about the expression of 'thunderous applause' in a couple of books on theater, and he'd seen it on a couple of occasions in glee itself, but he had never expected to hear it directed at him. It probably lasted no more than half a minute, but he knew it well enough to know it meant acceptance.

The problem was he wasn't sure he could accept it. The whole reason he had chosen 'Finishing the Hat' instead of any of the dozens of other songs he had memorized by now, or for that matter, any other Broadway song, was because this song was, in its own way, more personal. Even as he enjoyed the moment, there was a part of him that was still apart from all of this, watching through a window. He knew that this was mother's milk to people like Rachel and Kurt; it wasn't enough for him.

Still, he had managed to spend the last few years putting up a mask; he could keep it up a bit longer. Besides, it was time to see how much they really wanted him.

"Tom, God, that was amazing," Mr. Schuster told him. "I can't believe you've been right under our noses for this long."

"Does that mean I'm in?" It was a stupid thing to say, given what had just happened, but it needed to be said.

"Of course,"

"Even if I have a condition?"

And just like that, the wide smile on Mr. Schuster's face diminished. "Um, that would depend what it is," he started.

"Mr. Schue, unless it involves some kind of devil worship, I think we should take it," Puckerman told him.

_Here we go._ "Nothing that extreme, I think," Tommy took a deep breath. "All I need is the same thing the rest of this club needs."

"Which is what, exactly?" Quinn asked.

"Protection. From those who seem to have made it their mission to make everyone on this clubs life a living hell," Tommy looked out at the glee club. "I can't be alone in being concerned about it."

He thought he'd gotten everybody's attention.

"What exactly do you want us to do?" Finn asked.

"There have been at least a dozen assaults on members of this club just since school started up again," Tommy said slowly. "One of which happened as recently as this morning. Right, Tina?"

"I'm still getting raspberry out of my hair," Tina admitted.

Mr. Schuster looked a little uncomfortable for the first time. "Tom, I understand as well as anyone here how frustrating this has been for all of us. But I've gone to Figgis about this over and over the last year. Unless I have more than his word against hers..."

"That argument might have been valid when I was in junior high," Tommy interrupted. "If a student gets slushied in the middle of the hallway, and nobody owns up to it, that doesn't mean it didn't happen. Sally?"

He turned to the lead drummer, who brought up the picture that she had taken when the incident had happened. "It's even time-stamped," she pointed out.

This caused a bigger uproar than Tommy's audition had, as the majority of Glee gathered around the phone with a new respect for just about everybody in the band. "Tell me you haven't been doing this for longer," Kurt asked.

"I've been trying to coordinate something like this over the last couple of weeks," Tommy told them honestly. "I was going to give this to Figgis after the audition anyway, but I figure you'd want to see People's Exhibit one yourselves."

"I'm trying to rehabilitate my rep right now, but I could still kiss you," Quinn told him.

"I'm straight, and I'm seriously considering it," Puck added, probably in jest.

"Why are you sticking up for us?" Tina asked. "You don't know us at all."

"That's not entirely true," Tommy admitted. "Let's just say I have a genuine loathing of bullies in general, and leave it at that."

Mr. Schuster walked over to Sally, and asked her to bring this over the principal's office. Before he did, he turned to her and told her: "This isn't going to be easy for any of us. But what you and your friends have done, it took a lot of courage."

"We've done our part. Now it's time for you to do yours." Tommy told them.

Unlike the people who seemed willing to accept him as one of their own, Tommy was not naive enough to think that this was the end of their troubles with the jocks. Had any of them asked, he was expecting things to escalate. And there was a part of him that was actually looking forward to it.

They were about to find out they'd unlocked more than Tommy's inner performer that day at Glee.


	3. 2 One of Us

**Chapter 2**

**What If God Was One of Us?**

The first week in show choir had been relatively uneventful. Tommy had been possessed of relatively good timing most of his time at McKinley, and so it was here. He managed to avoid the uproar over the Britney Spears number which had resorted in a near riot at the student assembly, and took a lot of negotiating by Mr. Schuster to avoid the whole class getting suspended.

Tommy was actually grateful for this because, unlike the majority of the club save for Brittany, he loathed the former teen idol. As he had once told the rest of the orchestra, she sounded like a cow trying to give birth to an accordion. If she ever had any real talent, her last couple of albums seemed to lack anything resembling music. She seemed more famous for misbehaving than singing. And while Tommy didn't think he would be stoned to death for saying any of this out loud, he was not wild to let this particular element of his preferences become well known before the rest of Glee found other reasons to dislike him.

He figured those reasons would become pretty obvious when their next major assignment happened. For reasons that didn't quite track for him, Finn wanted to try and devote this week's classes to singing about God. This was a subject that made him wish they had decided to devote their week to singing a Britney Spears mash-up. He realized how unpleasant it was not to feel alone about this when Kurt made it very clear that he was opposed to this as well. That should have been obvious to everyone in Glee. This didn't make him any less resentful towards Mr. Schuster when he asked if anyone else felt the same way.

"Anyone see _The Invention of Lying _last year?" Tom started slowly.

Artie and Tina raised their hands, hesitantly. Tom knew enough about the complicated romantic relationships on this squad to know why they were hesitant about admitting that they had seen it together.

Santana hadn't but admitted she had seen the trailer, and thought it was stupid. "No one can take a world where everybody just tells the truth," she told them. "No one likes it when they keep it real."

"It's a pretty depressing being in a world where everybody tells the truth all the time. There's no fiction. There isn't much in the way of love. A retirement home is called 'A Sad Place Where Homeless Old People Come to Die.' Tommy told them. "Then Ricky Gervais suddenly has the ability to say something that 'isn't so'. The first thing he does is go to his mom, and tell her that dying doesn't lead to oblivion, but to a wonderful afterlife. Since everybody tells the truth, everybody believes him, and begs for more details. So there he is, standing in front of his house, telling people about a 'man in the sky,' and they will be happy up there with him after death."

"I'm not sure I like what you're implying," Quinn, the churchgoer told him. "You can't just pass God off some kind of one-liner."

"Really?" Tom actually felt happier than he had after his opening number. "So there's an all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful deity in the sky that monitors everything, like some kind of security guard? Say that's true. Well, he's been doing a pretty lousy job with existence up until now."

No one said anything but he could tell that more than Kurt believed he was on to something.

"Guys, this isn't church, we don't get into religious debate here," Mr. Schuster said.

"How about we make it an academic question? Let's say Jehovah is being graded for his work on Earth. How can he be a perfect being when he's created such a screwed-up planet?" Tommy loved making teachers uncomfortable, and this seemed a perfect opportunity. "Famines, floods, droughts, cancers, and every single thing that he has ever created eventually dies. Would you give him a passing grade for that?"

He clearly had the teacher flustered, and he was pretty sure that Quinn and Mercedes were a little baffled as how to answer as well- not a small accomplishment.

Then Rachel surprisingly spoke up. "Tom has some good points, and I'd be lying if I said some of them didn't make sense," she told them. "But I have to tell you, if you don't believe in something, the world seems kind of empty."

"How can you say that?" Kurt snapped.

"I'm not blind, Kurt. When you come from a family with two dads, let's just say that I've heard some pretty nasty things from people. Abomination in the eyes of God has come up more than once. I'm not sure whether I believe in God even now, but if I didn't think there was some kind of code, some kind of bigger thing..." Rachel trailed off. "It would be hard for me to keep singing."

The debate basically trailed off after that, mainly because Tommy figured he provoked enough disharmony for one day, and was relatively quiet for the rest of their time. Tommy had his own issues with God, and he didn't particularly want to play them out any further than he wanted too. He hoped that the others would let it go.

His hopes were not borne out. He had expected Quinn to peel off with Santana and Brittany towards whatever fresh hell Coach Sylvester was now defining Cheerio practice as. For reasons which defied his understanding, she had peeled away from them towards him.

"Doesn't Coach Sylvester have a throne made up of the bones of tardy cheerleaders?" He was only half-kidding. This particular rumor had been floating around the band for heaven knew how long.

"She thinks I'm gathering intelligence for future efforts," Quinn replied in that same half-sarcastic tone.

"Be careful. Keep standing next to me, whatever ranking you've built up is going to disappear."

"Why are you so angry?"

The question threw him. He had done a lot to make his appearance at McKinley as bland and unassuming as possible. It appeared he hadn't been doing a very good job, if they had weeded out this part of his personality after just ten days.

"I'm not, not really," he lied. "I've just got a lot of baggage."

"So does everybody in glee. Santana and Puck have pretty much made their reputations on it. Besides, if you take a Slushie in the face every other day, you build up a lot of resentment. Hell, I'm the poster child for having everything in my life go to hell in a matter of minutes." Quinn looked at him. "But we leave that behind when we perform. You don't. And you sure as hell don't share."

That much at least was true. During rehearsals for the last week, Tommy had made almost no effort to talk about anything that wasn't school or music related. This didn't exactly make him stand out - that was ninety percent of being in show choir - but afterwards, he hadn't made any additional efforts to hang out with anybody else in the group. He was honestly a little surprised that Mr. Schuster hadn't made an effort to try and encourage him to do something a little more group oriented.

"I know that being in Glee puts us apart from most of the others, but you- you seem to be there by choice." Quinn told him. "Why are you here really?"

"You really don't want to know my story, Quinn," Tommy found himself saying. "My emotional scars are so deep you can almost see them."

"You've done a pretty good job of hiding out at McKinley," Quinn told him. "If you wanted to keep doing that, why'd you join glee?"

She didn't wait for an answer, which was good because right then, he didn't have one.

Feeling himself going through another emotional roller coaster, he did what he normally did when faced with an insurmountable problem. He ran back home.

He spent the next several hours providing himself with other distractions. He channel surfed, listened to his kind of classical music, and did homework. Because he had become an accomplished multi-tasker, he was able to get all of this done, while the problem never really went away.

So he found himself watching a rerun of _Seinfeld,_ only half-hearing the jokes, when his cell rang. He didn't recognize the number, and he was tempted to let it go to voicemail, then realized he wasn't exactly going to lose his reputation as a lone wolf if he didn't try to play along.

"Hello?"

"Tom, are you there?" It took him a moment to recognize the voice, because Finn sounded incredibly distressed.

"Finn, are you alright?" It was a stupid thing to say, but he didn't know how badly he had put his foot in his mouth until Finn uttered his next sentence.

"Mr. Hummel had a heart attack."

It took him several seconds to really digest this. Burt Hummel had been the most vivid parental figure probably at McKinley, mainly because he was the strongest advocate for show choir and his son. Considering half of the club had serious absentee father issues, which meant a lot, even for someone who hadn't been there that long.

"How's he doing?" It was a stupid thing to ask, but it had to be done.

"They're operating on him now."

"What hospital?" Tommy asked, hoping it wasn't the one it had to be.

"St. Ambrose."

It was. Shit. "I don't have a car, but I'll be there as soon as I can."

"Thank you."

He hung up, trying to figure out a way to do this without upsetting his grandparents.

Tommy got there about half an hour later. It didn't take him long to get to the waiting room, but before he did, he made a stop at the front desk. He asked two question. The answer to both of them was yes.

He really hated hospital waiting rooms. They always smelled of antiseptic and urine, but he was pretty sure it was just a cover for the smell of death. Considering how much sorrow he associated with them, it was taking a major effort to maintain his facade of calm. By the time, he got there, most of the club was already there.

Just like at high school, he managed to slip in unnoticed. Kurt was looking straight at the wall, using what had to be an awesome amount of willpower to remain stoic. Tommy knew all too well how difficult that was. Finn, who was a lot more open with his feelings, looked like he was on the verge of caving in. The rest of the club showed various degrees of shock and sadness.

It took him a tremendous amount of effort to keep still, but he managed to do it. For the next fifteen minutes, they sat in silence all trying, not to think of the worst possible scenario.

At the end of that time, a man in his early seventies with graying hair and a mustache appearing at the end of the hall and walked towards them. "Kurt Hummel?" he asked brusquely.

Kurt got up, looking worried, as well he might. This clearly wasn't the doctor he'd been dealing with. "Is my father all right?"

"I'm Dr. Craig, chief of cardiothoracic. You're Burt Hummel's son?" the doctor told him.

Kurt wasn't clear whether to be alarmed or buoyed. "How's my father doing?"

"He suffered a mild arrhythmia. They just finished up surgery five minutes ago. It appears to have been successful, but we're going to have to watch him very carefully for the next few days."

"Dr. Craig, what are his chances?" Kurt asked.

"He's relatively young, but he's clearly going to be at risk, considering we had to do angioplasty. We'll have a better idea when he regains consciousness,"

Kurt seemed able to breathe a little easier. Finn, however, was a little more concerned. "When can we see him?"

"They'll be transferring him to the ICU in a few minutes, but we won't be recommending visitors til at least tomorrow, and then only in the immediate family." Craig looked around. "And since his last name isn't Von Trapp, I suggest the rest of you go home. Isn't tonight a school night?"

The others clearly looked a little puzzled at this sharpness, but Kurt looked at the others. "Look, I really appreciate all of you coming out here, but there really isn't a point, you waiting up all day with me. Go home, and get some rest. I'll see the rest of you later."

Tommy was not immensely surprised that Rachel and Mercedes decided to wait a little longer along with Kurt and Finn. Mrs. Hudson had just gotten up to talk with one of the other doctors who had just come out of the OR.

After about ten minutes, the others began to peel off. Tina turned to Tommy and asked if he needed a ride. He checked the time, and decided it might be better off getting home. He told her he wanted to get something to drink first, and that he'd meet her in the parking lot.

He went to the water fountain. "I'm glad to see that you've finally made some friends," Dr. Craig told them.

"I go to school with them. That doesn't make them my friends." Tommy said coolly.

"Then why did you tell the nurse that I needed to take a look at a patient who wasn't on my service?"

He should've known better than to try and outwit this man. "Because Kurt's been through a lot the last couple of years. He doesn't deserve to have to grow up without a father," he told them honestly.

'That's really all this was?"

"This place has too many bad memories for me. You won't mind if I don't stay any longer than I have to," Tommy started walking to the exit."

"You called in your favor. I hope this makes us even."

Tommy wasn't going to let this stand. "Considering everything that's happened here, you think we'll ever be truly even?"

Dr. Craig chose not to answer this question. "Tell your grandfather I look forward to seeing him at the opera this season," he finished up.

At the end of the hall, he found out that this exchange, like so many at McKinley had been witnessed by the wrong person. Quinn had seen it. "You know the chief of cardio here?" she asked.

"My grandfather had a minor incident with his heart when I was ten. I spent a long time here while he was in recovery. Got to know the staff pretty well."

He hoped that this half-truth would buy her silence, and it did. But only for that night.

Understandably, Kurt didn't show up to school the next day. Everybody in choir seemed to be walking as if there were shadows pursuing them. Tommy wasn't surprised to find that he felt the same way, even though he knew Kurt the least well. Burt Hummel's cardiac episode had stirred up a lot of bad memories, and he hadn't slept that well the night before. He knew he should probably talk about it with somebody - not Miss Pillsbury, who he still considered something of a flake, but maybe he should visit the therapist whose meetings he'd be ducking for the past few weeks. But months of remaining invisible and silent made him remain so here, and he didn't even volunteer to perform.

He didn't hurry out the way that he usually did when the bell rang. Instead, he walked over to Finn and Rachel. "Has there been any change?" he asked.

"My mom called in an hour ago. They say his condition is critical, but that he's stabilizing," Finn seemed more wore down than he usually that. "He's still in the coma. Is this real progress or are they just making up?"

"Finn, I'm sure that if things were getting worse, they'd tell you," Rachel replied. "Doctors may not like explaining things to teenagers, but they don't lie outright."

"Honestly, no news is good news," Tommy added. "They don't want to bore you with details they don't think you'd understand, and can be summed up by a few words."

"You've been through this before?" Rachel asked.

"When I was ten years old, my grandfather suffered a myocardial infarction, which is a fancy way of saying he had a heart attack," Tommy admitted. "It was relatively minor, but because he was over sixty, they kept him in the hospital for more than two months. Every time I went over there, the doctors would say a lot of medical terms that I couldn't follow, and that my grandmother needed to hear twice to make sense of."

"Did he get better?" Finn asked.

Tommy actually managed to chuckle at this. "He's still bitching about how bland everything tastes without salt," he told them. "Has to go in for a checkup every few months, but otherwise he's good."

Rachel looked at Tommy. "We're, uh, heading to the hospital now. I know this is out of your way, but would you mind coming to St. Ambrose with us? " When he hesitated, she added: "I don't think Kurt's slept since Mr. Hummel was wheeled in. Hearing from someone who's been through this before, maybe it'll help ease his mind."

Tommy didn't want to go back to St. Ambrose that soon, but he didn't like the idea of Kurt suffering the same kind of tumult that he had six years ago. So he agreed.

When they had trouble locating Mr. Hummel's room (nurses had not gotten any better at listing directions than they had been since the last time he had extended dealings with St. Ambrose), Tommy didn't bother to indicate that he knew where the ICU was. He had a feeling that Finn needed the distraction as much Kurt did, even if it was in this most horrible of places.

Burt Hummel wasn't sharing his room with any other patients - a small mercy. He looked incredibly pale and washed out, even among the dull white colors of the room. Kurt looked like he was even more overburdened than he had the day before. Mercedes stood a few feet away, her usual spark subdued by what she was seeing.

For a long time, no one seemed able to speak. "Has anybody given any update on him?" Finn finally asked.

"Somebody came in to check his vitals an half an hour ago," Kurt said hollowly. "But no one will tell me how he's doing or when he'll wake up."

Even in his exhaustion, it was clear Kurt was holding on to more hope than he admitted - he was using "when" instead of 'if'.

"It's the way that these places are run," Tommy spoke up. "I think they've got some kind of rule about telling family as little as possible or not having the same nurse visit your room twice."

"You've been here before," Mercedes stated.

"Far more often than I should have," Tommy told them, hoping they would let it go at that. Fortunately, he wasn't the one they were worried about right now.

"Kurt, have you gotten any rest at all?" None of them had heard Mrs. Hudson enter the room.

"I got a couple of hours last night," Kurt said distractedly.

"In one of those chairs? You're not going to do good to anybody, if you collapse right here," Mrs. Hudson replied.

"I can't just leave, What if... something happens?" he finished weakly.

Maybe he was still focused on the worst case scenarios after all.

"You gotta get some sleep, Kurt," Finn told them. "We'll stand watch for a while. Believe me, he won't be alone."

Tommy knew that this wasn't what was worrying Kurt. He also knew that even the most fully meant sentiment still sounded like bullshit when you were in a place like this. But the last thing he wanted to do was make anybody feel worse, so he said nothing.

"Find someone who'll tell me something about Dad's condition, then I'll get some rest." He sounded even more distracted than before, and Tommy who listened to people closely, noticed that he had not said that he would go home.

Nevertheless, Rachel walked out into the hallway to try and find someone who could give them some peace of mind. Tommy knew that hospitals killed that concept just by being there, but Kurt probably knew that by now.

Tommy was beginning to feel pulled by two conflicting forces. As was the case whenever he was in a situation where he couldn't do something useful, he just wanted to get away, and considering that this was a place he had major issues about being in, that urge was twice as strong. But even though he wasn't really one of Kurt's friends, he didn't particularly want to abandon him to the mercies of St. Ambrose, which looked like it was sucking some of his energy every minute he stayed here.

From a purely logical standpoint, he knew this wasn't true. Hospitals were not vampires, they were places that healing took place. But Tommy knew well enough this they were also places where people came to die, and he desperately didn't want Kurt's father to be one of them.

Reluctantly, he told Kurt that he would be right back. Last night had clearly proved that he still had some juice here, and he couldn't think of a better way to use it. Because he didn't particularly want to get credit for it, he looked around until he saw a nurse that looked vaguely familiar.

"Why the hell has no one come in to update us on Burt Hummel's condition?" he demanded, without any introduction.

"I don't know who you think you are," the nurse began.

He had no intention of letting her finish. "Burt Hummel is one of Dr. Craig's patients," he told her. "I'm guessing you know that name even if you haven't bothered to learn his."

"I realize that it's frustrating being here, but you can't expect-"

Again, he cut her off. "I happen to be a very good friend of Mark Craig's." he exaggerated. "He assured me that Burt Hummel would get the very best care possible. Which means he'll probably be pissed royal to know that no one's bother to check in either him or his son for nearly half an hour. So if you don't want to get us both in a lot of trouble, get someone over to Room 329 _right now."_

In the best case scenario, this was a hell of a bluff. He was therefore very grateful that the nurse ran off without putting up any more of an argument. Unfortunately, he realized very quickly that he'd been a lot louder than he should've been, and that the last possible person he'd wanted to witness this had.

"The chief of cardiology knows you by name?" Rachel told him. "Is that the real reason he came in to check on Kurt's father last night?"

He really didn't want to answer this question. "Rachel, this isn't any of your business, so stay out of it." Tommy tried to walk away, but the diva-in-training followed him.

"You can't just make stuff up like that," Rachel replied. "The Hummels barely get by as it is. They can't afford to have you just order people around like they can afford it."

This was a legitimate point, one that Tommy hadn't even considered. He had, however, no intention of telling anyone in high school this, least of all someone who would probably tell everybody in glee about it.

"Dr. Craig is a very close friend of my grandfather's," he tried again.

"Come on, you can't honestly expect us to believe that. If the chief heart surgeon called in favors for everybody's life he saved,. This hospital would go bankrupt."

Rachel sometimes was too smart for her own good. "Do you want Mr. Hummel to get the best possible care?" he tried a more personal plea.

"Of course I do," she answered, "but I don't want your family to have to pay for it. They can't be any richer than his. Besides, I know they wouldn't have brought Mr. Hummel to this hospital if they had another choice."

His family was somewhat more well off than the Hummels, but somehow he doubted this would carry a lot of weight with her- Rachel's fathers were also a bit better off, and she probably wouldn't even make an offer on this.

He decided to see if he could limit the damage - do triage, as it were. "All right, I'll tell you why I have some pull here, but you can't breathe a word of this to anyone, not anyone in glee, not your boyfriend, and definitely not Kurt."

Rachel now seemed more puzzled than anything, but she agreed. He knew that eventually she'd break and tell someone, but hopefully she could hold off doing this until Mr. Hummel woke up.

"I didn't tell the complete truth about why I knew about hospitals," he told her. "I actually came to this hospital a year before my grandfather had his heart attack." Tommy took a deep breath. "This is the hospital where they brought my mother before she died. She was one of Dr. Craig's patients. He tried to save her life, but he failed. He's been feeling guilty about it ever since."

Rachel took this in. "Why would he feel guilty about that? Doctor's lose patients every day."

"He couldn't save her because my father killed her, and he let it happen," Before Tommy had realized what he had said, he was adding: Kurt's not the only one who has a reason not to believe in God."

For whatever pleasure it gave him, and in his state it wasn't much, this had the power to shut Rachel up. "Not a word of this to anyone. Understand?"

Rachel nodded, and to her credit, she managed to keep quiet about it longer than he would have thought possible.

He was the one who ended up spilling the truth.

The next day, Kurt was back in school, albeit looking even more worn down than he had the last two days. If he had gotten any rest, it didn't seem that apparent to Tommy. He had never heard 'I Want to Hold Your Hand' sung in such melancholy and pain. He wanted to tell Kurt, who was probably fated to go through more pain and rejection in his life than anybody else, that everyone was going to be all right, that his father would recover, that things would be better from here on out.

But he didn't want to lie to him.

As if that weren't hard enough to bear, Kurt wasn't talking to Mercedes, and wasn't exactly being friendly with Rachel either. When the class was over, he approached Mercedes, and asked her point blank what was going on between her and her best friend.

When he heard what she and Quinn and Rachel had done, he wasn't entirely surprised. "You knew how Kurt feels about this, and how damn vulnerable he is. Why'd you do it?" he said without thinking.

"I was thinking that Burt Hummel needs all the help he can get," Mercedes was taking her typical 'don't screw with me' tone, "and even Kurt doesn't believe, maybe something like this would actually help."

"So why do it over Burt Hummel? Hell, there's a chapel in the hospital for that very reason." Tommy reminded her. "Kurt's in pain, and you don't need to shove something in his face."

Mercedes considered this. "Why does this matter so much to you?" she demanded.

"This isn't about me. It's about Kurt," he told her doggedly.

"I'm not blind, Tommy. You've been pissed off ever since Finn came up with the idea for this week's assignment. Now you can believe whatever you want to believe - that's your right. But why do you have to make everyone else think the same thing? I'm pretty sure that's at least as bad as me trying to force God on everyone."

Mercedes had a remarkable astuteness for these kinds of things. "Your belief in God, it's important to you," Tommy started. "You think it could withstand anything?"

"I heard the argument you made two days ago," Mercedes admitted. "It's pretty solid, but I'm pretty sure that my reverend could make short work of it."

"I'm pretty sure I could come up with a solid theological argument, but I'm guessing that wouldn't get you off my case," he told her. "So why don't I just tell you why I _really _can't believe in God?"

Mercedes was trying to look more welcoming than curious, and wasn't quite pulling it off.

"Everybody in glee knows I live with my grandparents. Nobody knows why. Don't think because I'm about to tell you a secret means that it can be shared." He had to know that this wasn't going to happen, but he was relying on shock value to keep her quiet.

"What's the difference between a drunk and an alcoholic? A drunk doesn't have to go to those stupid meetings," Tommy was trying to deflect because he really didn't like going where he was about to go. "My parents loved each other very much, but they met at a kegger at OSU. Maybe that should've clued my mother into what she was getting, but she always wanted to see the better side of people. Even when they really didn't deserve it."

"Your father drank?"

"I'm getting there. If my dad had been a mean drunk, I might actually be better off. My mother would've realized what a hopeless case he was early on, and left before things got too bad. But most of the time he was mellow when he drank, So she stuck by him, as he missed birthday parties, anniversaries, any other occasion that required being a Dad." Tommy slowed his speech. "My mother kept hoping, but by the time I was nine, she'd had enough. One afternoon, she told my father that she was going to get a divorce. My father seemed to take this the same as he did everything else. He showed up for the meeting drunk. The day she went to the lawyers, for some reason, I'll probably never know why, they got in the same car. My mother was behind the wheel. Maybe they were getting into a stupendous fight, maybe it just got to much for her. Whatever the reason, she didn't see the semi when it hit them."

Tommy was deliberately looking straight ahead. He didn't want to see Mercedes look of pity or whatever she might have on her face. He was going to get through this.

"My father, who when he was tested by the police, was twice the legal limit, escaped without a scratch. My mother had a shard of glass pierce her heart. She wasn't killed instantly, no, that would have been too simple. She managed to make it to St. Ambrose. By some medical miracle which I am not privy to, she survived the loss of blood, and ten hours in surgery repairing the wound. The surgeon who operated on her thought she would live if she made it through the next twenty-four hours." Tommy paused. "One of her stitches became undone, and she bled out before they could save her."

"My father reacted to this, by going on the king of all benders. As far as I know, he never got off it. He just left my house and didn't come back. My grandparents- my mom's parents- managed to obtain custody. And I have never seen my dad since."

"So let me ask you, Mercedes Jones, what God does this? Lets my mother die very painfully, and my father walk away intact? What kind of God gives a sixty-year old man who doesn't smoke or drink a heart attack? What takes a loving mother from her child and gives his father a heart attack at forty-two?" He looked at Mercedes. "Oh, that's right. "A kind, loving God. Your Reverend got an answer for that?"

And with that, he walked away, hoping that he'd left the subject for good, but also wondering why it had taken him two weeks to tell something it had taken him a year to tell his therapist.

Over the weekend, Mr. Hummel came out of his coma. By the time he was up to seeing visitors, it looked like he was going to recover, and the doctors were optimistic. Tommy had not returned to the hospital that weekend, but nobody in the club was giving him any crap about it.

The mood was upbeat when glee met that Monday, and they were giving free reign in the auditorium for once. Apparently, Mr. Schuster had been taking yet another assault from Coach Sylvester on their singing songs about God. (Tommy didn't think it would have made him any more popular had he mentioned that he agreed with the head of the Cheerios for once.) For them to being so on the big stage seemed to be tickling the beast, but he decided not to bring it up, because he felt they needed the win, and he was beginning to feel like he had to get used to performing on stage.

"You know, you've done some pretty good singing, since you got here," Schuster told him. "But you haven't asked for any solos."

"Yeah, you don't really belong to New Directions until you demand a solo for yourself," Artie told him.

He didn't think it worth mentioning that having spent so much time at McKinley fading into the background, he'd been doing much the same in glee. There was also the fact that he wasn't wild about singing about God anywhere, much less here.

"Maybe I'm so old school, I'm afraid you wouldn't recognize my style," he told them, which was at least a half-truth. "But since you asked, how well do you know The Beach Boys?"

The orchestra knew what he was talking about, even if about half the club didn't. But as soon as they began to strike the opening chords, they knew what he was talking about:

_I may not always love you,_

_But long as there are stars above you,_

_You never need to doubt it,_

_I'll make you so sure about it._

_God only knows what I'd be without you._

He didn't know if they had Beach Boys on their IPods or if some of them had ever watched _Big Love. _Whatever the reason, they all were on point, by the second verse:

_If you would ever leave me,_

_Life would still go on, believe me_

_The world could do nothing to me,_

_So what good what nothing do me?_

_God only knows what I'd be without you._

_God only knows..._

There was always a sort of flow in their numbers. He was still out of step and out of place, but he felt a little more part of the group as the number progressed. He even felt a little of the exuberance that they all felt at the end of a particularly good number.

When the number was breaking up, however, he found that Mercedes was looking at him. As far as he knew, she hadn't shared his secret with the rest of the club by now. But for the first time, she walked away from Kurt and over to him.

"Does this little number mean that you've had a change of heart?" she asked.

"About performing in public, maybe a little. About the subject we discussed earlier, not at all." Mercedes looked puzzled, so he elaborated. "Sometimes a song is just a song, Mercedes. You'd better get that if we're going to perform together."

She looked at him for a few moments, then shrugged. "They think Mr. Hummel will be able to check out in a couple days. Think you'll be able to see him before that?"

Nothing had changed in the past week. He still loathed St. Ambrose with every fiber of his being, but he had come to think that he had to be a little less self-centered. "I'll try."

And he did.


	4. Duets

**Chapter 3**

**Duets**

Tommy had fallen back into his customary groove by October. He was handing in assignments on time, mapping out the fastest way to get to classes (he didn't like all of them, but speed still mattered to him), and things were getting better in glee.

The events that followed Puck getting sent to juvenile detention would turn out to be the next major milestone in his time at McKinley. He was still standing slightly apart from everything, trying to pretend he was still invisible some of the time.

Had this happened last year, Puckerman's absence would have been far more significant, but with Tommy joining the group, they had a little more wiggle room. It did, however, leave them with an odd number of performers in, which made the next assignment challenging.

Most of the people in Glee jumped at the idea of a competition for dinner at Breadsticks, which was practically the only solid restaurant in all of Lima. Tommy was not looking forward to it. He had gotten more comfortable performing with them in the group numbers, had done a handful of solos, but singing with another person scared him.

Tommy may have been invisible, but he wasn't blind. He knew how many couples had formed and broken up because they had started singing together. He was pretty sure that Mike and Tina's relationship had begun because of the dance number they had performed last April, and he knew that Artie was still devastated by it. And as someone who had never been on a date in his entire life, he wasn't entirely sure he wanted to be vaulted into any kind of relationship based on whether he sang well with someone else. There were potential land mines all around him.

The first one came the next day when Kurt approached him in the hall. "You know everything that's been going on the last week or so, I never got a chance to thank you," he told Tommy.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he told him.

"It took me awhile, but no one else in New Directions had anything to do with getting Dr. Craig to work on my father," Kurt explained. "What I can't understand is why you were so concerned about someone you've barely gotten to know."

It was a question Tommy had been considering ever since he had called on the world-rated heart surgeon two weeks earlier. "We may not have been friends, but that doesn't mean I haven't seen some of the things that you've been dealing with the last year," he admitted. "You have an extra level of crap to deal with than most of the people in glee. I didn't want to have to see you become an orphan."

From the expression that briefly crossed the young man's angelic face, it was clear that had been a scenario that he had considered. "Thank you for being honest," Kurt hesitated. "To make a particularly awkward segue way, have you decided who you're going to be partnering with for this week's assignment?"

"I've sort of spent the last few hours considering it. To be honest, I haven't sung a duet with anybody other than my grandmother on the radio when I was twelve," Tommy admitted. "The idea kinda has my stomach in a bind."

Kurt looked at him carefully. "You have definite talent. You've got a better voice than about half the group, and considering how good most of us are, that's saying something." He gave a smile. "One way to lock up your position in this club would be to sing a duet with the right kind of voice."

Suddenly, Tommy had an idea where this conversation was going, and decided to try and head it off at the pass. "Kurt, you have a wonderful voice, and I'd be honored to sing with you. But," he held up a hand, "before we do, I think you and I have to have an understanding. Is it your impression that I'm gay?"

Kurt looked a little like he'd been taken off guard. "I'm honestly not sure," he admitted.

"Am I your type?" Tommy asked. "'Cause if I am, you _really _should raise your standards."

This actually merited a laugh from him. "I think you're selling yourself short."

"I'm not good at sports, I'm not movie star handsome, I have to wear glasses to see from a distance, and until last year, my favorite weeknight activity was blogging about _Lost. _Even I would be charitable to call myself a nerd."

Kurt didn't run away, but he didn't start telling him he was wrong. "I notice you didn't answer the question," he responded.

"It's 'cause I don't have an answer that would satisfy you," Tommy admitted. "I'm ninety-five percent sure that I'm straight, but for all I know maybe I just haven't met the right person. But since we're going to go there, I'll tell you this much, I'm no more attracted to you than I am anyone else in glee club."

This was, in fact, a flat out lie - he was no more immune to looks of the Cheerios than any other guy in this school- but he really didn't want to hurt Kurt's feelings anymore than he already might have.

Kurt didn't seem that upset, but maybe he was dealing with it differently. He decided to throw Kurt a crumb. "But if you're serious about wanting to do that duet, I'd still be willing. You got any preferences?"

Kurt managed a smile. "How much Sondheim do you know?"

"More than I would admit to anyone except you or Rachel," he told him. "That's actually something that I wanted to talk about to everybody else in Glee about, but I know that you've got enough pull that people would listen if it came from me."

"I'm listening," Kurt told him.

"This is around the time that the theater group puts together a show," he told them. "I've got the germ of an idea that might make that less painful then it was last year. Might even help us raise money for that trip to New York we've all got our eyes on."

Now Kurt seemed genuinely intrigued. They walked off, not knowing that Finn had observed most of the conversation

The next day was to be one that was full of shocks, most of them unpleasant ones. It started off when Kurt ran into him in the halls before second period, and told them that he was 'taking him off the hook."

Tommy was genuinely surprised. "Kurt, lack of attraction aside, I was kind of getting used to the idea of performing with you."

"Lima's a lousy place to be gay in," Kurt admitted. "It hurts not being able to do the things that every other couple in this high school does without thinking. I wouldn't wish it on anybody else here, and unfortunately, that would apply to you, if you and I did a duet."

Tommy could've argued that Mercedes and Santana had done a hell of a number the previous day, and nobody was telling them to get a time share in San Francisco. But he knew, unfairly or not, that this was not the way life worked. Someone on the student body, boy or girl, would have to have balls of steel to even suggest that idea to Santana Lopez.

"What makes you think I give a damn what other people think?" he argued instead.

"Maybe not, but it's one thing to go from making yourself visible to pinning a target on your back," Kurt replied. "You're a decent guy, and you deserve not to get mixed up with my stuff."

"I don't think even you should have to go through the 'stuff' that comes down here," Tommy said honestly. "Besides, think of it from my point of view. I was just starting to get comfortable with the idea of singing with you. Now I've gotta go through all that anxiety of choosing someone else."

"You really are taking this a lot more seriously than an unlimited salad bar seems to deserve," Kurt replied. "In any case, I wouldn't worry about that part of it. Finn and Rachel probably don't even have to rehearse to get this thing locked up."

He was probably right about that. "Okay, I'll find a way to get through this." Tommy hesitated. "You think about the other thing we discussed?"

"I did, and it's such a good idea, I'm tempted to claim it for myself," Kurt told him. "I think you should hold off mentioning it until the competition is over, but I can't see anybody in glee or the faculty having a problem with it."

Tommy just nodded, feeling a little bit more satisfied.

"Where have you been all our lives?" Kurt asked.

"Less than ten feet from you," Tommy replied.

He walked away - and right into the path of a strawberry Slushie.

"Welcome to the geek squad, bitch!"

He hadn't seen who had done it, but he recognized the voice. It was Cliff, the linebacker who seemed to take a particular delight in wholly uninspired taunts before he doused his victims. The Terminator, he wasn't.

He knew that he'd been humiliated in front of half the student body, and that he was probably going to take a shitload of teasing for the rest of the day. But, just like he did when he was performing, he separated himself from the assault, and allowed a single thought to form in his mind.

_This was supposed to stop._

Why was he surprised it hadn't? A bully doesn't stop being a bully because he's been threatened by somebody else. And even if you take down one, there's always another one to take his place. Nature abhorred a vacuum, and while he was still vague on what that meant in biology, he had a crystal clear idea of what it meant in high school.

He had no idea how long he stood there, looking even more like a loser than he already felt, until he felt someone tapped on his shoulder. "Funny, until now I always liked strawberry flavored things," he said slowly.

"Come with me."

Cliff had managed to hit right between the eyes, but he could still tell a Cheerios uniform when he saw one. Quinn had rescued him. Though it went against his nature to be led by anybody, he let her guide him to the bathroom. He needed to see less red, physically and metaphorically.

"Pretty sure one of us isn't supposed to be here," he said as she walked in and let her lead him to the sink.

"This uniform sort of gives you a pass for just about everything," Quinn told him.

"And the effect of being in glee doesn't cancel it out? I remember last year just as well as you do," Tommy pointed out. "I'm a big boy, Quinn; I remember how to wash my face."

"You always miss some the first time," A trace of the bitterness that seemed to be in the head cheerleaders voice half the time showed. "I was getting blueberry out of my hair for days."

"Somehow, I doubt you ever let anything keep you from looking as good as you do," He hadn't meant to sound like some kind of hanger-on, but now it was out there.

For several seconds, he thought Quinn was just going to let this go. "You're not seriously trying to talk me up here?" she said slowly.

"Believe me, Quinn, if I was going to try and be romantic, I'd pick a far more pleasant setting. There is no love poem in the world that can spice up a high school bathroom."

This, she smiled at, and got some paper towels as he finished the first clean up. "You think you're going to be ok?" she asked.

He was silent for several seconds. "Considering I was just assaulted in front of the student body, I'd say I'm rather far from okay," he finally told her.

"This is how high school works. I'd give you some cliché about the circle of life, but I don't think that this would make you feel any better," Quinn told him bitterly.

"Actually, that attitude bothers nearly as much as taking a Slushie in the face," Tommy was beginning to see red again, and it wasn't because of the Slushie. "High school may be a really shitty place, but what the hell gives them the right to make it worse?"

Quinn looked at him strangely. There might even have been a touch of fear in her voice. Why wouldn't she be upset? A lot of bad things had happen in high schools across the country for far less than the kinds of things that New Directions had taken during the last year. "Promise me you're not going do something stupid," she asked.

"I've seen the caliber of who you're fighting," Tommy told her honestly. "Stupid actions are the only kinds of things people like Cliff understand."

Now she really was starting to get worried. "Tommy, you're a good guy. Don't do something that could get you tossed out."

"I'm not going to hurt anybody, you can be sure of that," he promised. "Beyond that, I think that it's better for you and the rest of Glee if you don't know what's going to happen."

"You want to go to the teacher-"

"I did. We've seen how well that worked," Tommy was trying to remain calm. "All I'm going to do is send a message. A message that even those thugs out there can understand."

What happened in the boy's locker room that afternoon would be talked about for days to come, which is why it was so surprising that even immediately after the event; no one was entirely sure how it could have happened. Ever since she had come to McKinley, Coach Bieste had a practice of shutting off the showers to anybody who wasn't in the football, and though people may not have liked her, they were afraid of her enough that they were willing to abide by these rules. So there was never a clear idea of how a student, much less someone who from the moment he showed was clearly an interloper, got inside in the first place.

By now, word had spread around McKinley what had happened to Tommy. And considering half the football team was on the glee club, there was a lot of tension simmering in the room. If the Coach didn't have a no tolerance policy, there might have already been a few fights breaking out. As it was, there were a lot of dirty looks being exchanged on all sides.

For that same reason, no one was quite sure when the figure got in. And by the time somebody looked up to see what was going on, it was almost too late.

"Cliff Katzenbach," That was the other thing. No one recognized the voice either. It sounded like a mix of a snarl and someone clearing their throat. Everybody turned towards the source, and were even more confused.

It was a warm October and they were indoors, so there was no reason for anybody to be wearing a trenchcoat, red dirty gloves, a hat, and, though no one could place the face, a rubber mask of Richard Nixon. This was enough to cause everybody to freeze in their place, even Cliff whose reactions should have been quicker.

"I'm here to deliver a message," the trespasser told them.

Everybody was so busy looking at the intruder's wardrobe that none of them noticed that he had a plastic cup in his hands. Before anyone could jump on him, he had dashed the contents - which appeared to be ice coffee- at Cliff's crotch.

"You - or any of your jock friends- try to retaliate against Glee- and this happens to whoever does it," the figure growled. "Only next time, the coffee will be hot."

He was outnumbered, and in hostile territory. In a normal situation, the friends of Cliff, which were pretty much everyone in the room who wasn't in New Directions, should have leaped on him, torn off the mask, and prepared some kind of retaliations. But the utter audacity of the attack, coupled with the strangeness of his appearance, had everybody flummoxed.

Nor did the intruder overstay his welcome. Finished with his message, he ran towards the exit. One of Cliff's friends eventually regained enough clarity to start running towards the exit, but by then he was already halfway down the hall.

"Hey asshole, you really think you can do this and run away?"

By now, Coach Bieste had reentered, and was trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

"I'm not afraid of anything you can do," the figure taunted him.

"You just messed with the wrong group of people. What the fuck makes you think you can do it again?"

As if he had been waiting for that exact line, the figure turned, and, in an even scratchier voice (though none of them knew it was an imitation of Frank Langella doing Richard Nixon) said: "Because when the President does it, that means that's it not illegal."

He didn't bother waiting for them to try and parse out this particular quote. He just ran around the corner. The pissed-off teenager would've chased him further, but by now the bewildered coach was yelling at him to come back.

And just like that, the intruder was gone, never to darken the door of the boys' locker room again.

The next day the whole school was buzzing about it, and Tommy had the feeling that he was sitting on a powder keg. He had spent the hours after the incident sure that he was going to be chased down by Figgis, but nobody said anything to him. Nor was there any retaliatory strike against the club - apparently the jocks hadn't been able to tie together Attack A with Attack B.

The problem start when they met after-school. At first it didn't seem like one. As was his pattern, he showed up to glee early and therefore bore witness to all the excited chatter about what had happened. Even those who had actually seen what had happened seemed unable to agree on how tall or how big the intruder had been. The story was less than a day old, and it was already become a legend. Nevertheless, Tommy didn't take any bows, or give any hint to anybody that he was the man behind the mask. The last thing he wanted was credit for this.

It was when Mr. Schuster showed up looking serious that he began to realize there might be something of a problem here. "Guys, I've heard what happened yesterday, and the principal's concerned."

"Oh, as opposed to all the times we've taken Slushies in the face in front of the whole school," Santana replied. "Glad to know their priorities are straight."

"This person made a threat in front of a bunch of students. That has to be taken seriously."

"I was there. All he said was another attack would happen if the jocks retaliated," Artie told them. "That's a lot less warning than we usually get."

Mr. Schuster seemed to realize he was treading on thin ice, but obviously as a member of the faculty, he couldn't just let this go. "I knows we've had problems with the other athletes in the past -"

"Have, Mr. Schue," Kurt reminded them bitterly. "They've been wailing on us non-stop for a year and a half."

"We have ways of dealing with this."

Now Tommy felt it was safe to speak. "As I recall, we tried that way. Didn't work."

This was in fact a _very _sore point with the Glee kids. After showing Figgis the digital photo, the principal had suspended the assailant, and promised stern repercussions for any repeat offenders. All that had ended up meaning was that each day a _different _jock splattered one of the kids. And while they had tried to maintain a video perimeter around them, the band was not big enough to keep an eye on all of them. Plus, the jocks had spent a year managing not to get caught, and had gotten pretty good at managing to avoid being caught twice.

"I know how frustrating this is for all of you, I've been going through the same kind of battles too," Mr. Schuster was telling them, "but if we give into this kind of attack, they win."

"They've already won, Mr. Schuster." Mercedes retaliated. "We get reminded of that every day."

"Coach Sylvester's having us spell it out at the next pep rally," Brittany told them abstractly.

"If somebody's willing to stick up for us, why shouldn't we be cheering them on?" Finn replied

This was actually a little more anarchy than Tommy had hoped to sew. The last thing he wanted was for the club to fragment because they didn't think the teacher- who he knew at times last year had been the only thing keeping Glee going- was willing to go to bat for them.

"Mr. Schue, does Figgis know who did this?" he asked very cautiously.

"Everyone agrees that he was wearing a mask and disguising his voice." Mr. Schuster admitted. "They're not even a hundred percent sure it was a man."

"And nobody was actually hurt in this- whatever you want to call it?"

Schuster nodded. "It's the main reason the principal's a lot less worked up than he should be."

"Then how about we promise to keep our eyes open, and hope that everything else remains calm." He could've argued, but didn't, that despite all the rumors going around school, no one from the football or hockey team had retaliated.

Reluctantly, the teacher let it go and they proceeded with the day's assignment. Tommy was so relieved that he hadn't been implicated that he never even noticed that Quinn was looking at him strangely for most of the class.

Feeling a little guilty about not hanging out with them that much, and partly to bring himself down a little after all the excitement, he spent the next half-hour jamming with the band, in their fashion. They were in the middle of playing one of his favorites, when he suddenly realized that Quinn was watching

"Now that I see how good you are, I kind of understand why you spent so much time just playing," she told him. "I don't quite recognize that last number."

He didn't like sharing any part of himself, so he almost blushed to be caught. "It's part of the background music for _Lost,"_ he admitted reluctantly. He looked at here. "I'm guessing you're not a fan."

"I watched it for awhile when I was younger," the cheerleader admitted. "I think I held out until they stopped doing the flashbacks and then I bailed. Did it ever end up making any sense?"

"Depends on who you ask," Tommy decided to keep his opinions to himself on this. "But there are more important things to a work of art than that."

"Really?"

"I didn't realize until around the fourth season, but the guy who wrote the musical score- a man named Michael Giacchino- did some pretty amazing things." He hesitated, not sure whether or not to share this part of himself, which he didn't do that often.

"What made it so special?"

"He gave each character theme music," Tommy spoke slowly. "Starting in the first season and in a lot of the episodes afterwards, when a character appeared on screen, they play it, like it was some kind of musical. I've never seen anything like it."

"And you know how to play it just by hearing it?" Quinn seemed amazed by this. "I don't know why I'm that surprised, considering everything that you did when you were helping us rehearse."

"I think you overestimate, how much help you need for what you do," Tommy told them.

"I think you underestimate that," Quinn replied. "Maybe that's the reason you've decided to help us so much."

Suddenly he felt like squirming. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Come on, Tommy. I'm not an idiot either. I saw you get hit with a Slushie yesterday, I saw you swear to send a message, not six hours later someone does the exact same thing to Cliff in our name," Quinn reminded him. "You don't have to be an honors student to add two and two."

He had wondered why Quinn hadn't said anything about this to Schuster or Figgis.

"What I don't understand is how you managed to get in the boys locker room looking like Halloween came two weeks early," Quinn asked.

Reluctantly, he got up, and walked over to her. Lowering his voice to a near-whisper, he told her: "One of the brave young men who plays music for you works as one of the gym teacher's assistant. He managed to coordinate things so that I could find a hole in Coach Beiste's schedule."

"Don't tell me that you just happened to have that disguise stashed in your locker," Quinn asked.

"No more than there happens to be a Starbucks in our lobby," he admitted. "I went straight home after last class; I changed in the bathroom where I got the coffee. The rest was practically a walk in the park."

"You know how much trouble you could get in, if you had gotten caught?"

"I was hoping for it!" He realized he'd raised his voice, and lowered it again. "Why do you think no one reported on me? If they acknowledge they know what happened, they'd have to own up to their own crimes. They'd have to admit I had a reason to retaliate. It would've put everything the jocks have been doing to the glee club for the past year under a damn microscope, and no one wants that particular can of worms opened."

Quinn considered this for several moments. "You're either incredibly brave or incredibly stupid," she finally said.

"One doesn't preclude the other," Tommy admitted. "You now have my life in your hands. What are you going to do about it?"

She thought about this again. "For some strange reason, Rachel caught up with me in the girl's room. She seems to think that you and I should sing together."

He got up from the piano, hoping like hell he hadn't done a cartoon double-take. "That doesn't sound like the Rachel we know," he said slowly. "Anything that has even the slightest of possibilities of taking the spotlight off her-"

"It kind of worries me a little," Quinn admitted.

"What was her argument?" he asked.

"She says if we could finish a strong second, it would improve how we look the entire club, particularly with the newest member," Quinn looked at him. "I'm not saying I buy it either."

"I think I've proven I'm good singer, and I know how good you can be," he said slowly. "But I don't think on our best day, we could beat Rachel and Finn."

For a second, he wondered if the head cheerleader would take offense. She didn't seem to. He was about to challenge that idea. "Besides, aren't you afraid that it will damage your rep to be seen singing with the school's most dangerous teen?"

She actually smiled a little at this. "You? You do remember the father of my child?"

"I'm not a quarterback. I'm not even a benchwarmer," Tommy told her. "I'm not a fool, Quinn. I know my limitations. Anne Hathaway will not show up at my door wrapped up in a raincoat in the middle of the night."

"I haven't even said I'd do this duet with you."

"And you know that's how almost every relationship in this club ends up going. You're not a fool either."

Quinn didn't deny it. "Neither of us have much in the way of other options," she pointed out. "Besides, you just said you weren't afraid of anything."

"Yeah, well singing with another person comes close," he admitted. "Especially when you're a decade behind the rest of the world musically." He decided not to tell her that it was actually closer to thirty years.

"You seem pretty good when-"

"You have no idea how much work it takes," he told her honestly.

"He's not kidding," Kerri apparently hadn't gone that far.

"No commentary from the bleachers, please," Tommy told the rest of the band.

"You're still very good. I find it hard to believe there isn't a song we could do." Quinn asked.

For some reason, he didn't want to seem any more geeky than he already had in front of her. He tried to think of some duet that might pass for modern in his repertoire.

And then one hit him. "I think I got one." He ran up to the band, who were, as was usually the case, more on top of this than he was.

They started playing, and he started whistling. After the first few bars, it was clear Quinn knew what he was talking about.

_If I told you things I did before_

_Told you how I used to be,_

_Would you go along with someone like me?_

_If you knew my story word for word,_

_Handled all my history,_

_Would you go along with someone like me?_

Quinn took over:

_I did before and had my share._

_It didn't lead anywhere._

_I would go along with someone like you._

_It doesn't matter what you did,_

_Who you were hanging with,_

_We could stick around and see this night through._

Then they were singing together, like they had done so a hundred times before.

_And we don't care about the young folks_

_Talking 'bout the young style,_

_And we don't care about the old folks,_

_Talking 'bout the old style too._

_And we don't care about our own folks, _

_Talking 'bout our own stuff_

_All we care about is talking_

_Talking only me and you._

Things just kept flowing, when they did it in glee the next day.

_Usually when things have gone this far,_

_People tend to disappear,_

_No one would surprise me unless you do._

_I can tell there's something goin' on_

_Hours seem to disappear._

_Everyone is leaving; I'm still with you._

_It doesn't matter what we do_

_Where we are going to_

_We can stick around and see this night through._

_And we don't care about the young folks_

_Talking 'bout the young style,_

_And we don't care about the old folks,_

_Talking 'bout the old style too._

_And we don't care about our own folks, _

_Talking 'bout our own stuff_

_All we care about is talking_

_Talking only me and you._

_And we don't care about the young folks_

_Talking 'bout the young style,_

_And we don't care about the old folks,_

_Talking 'bout the old style too._

_And we don't care about our own folks, _

_Talking 'bout our own stuff_

_All we care about is talking_

_Talking only me and you._

Then they finished with the whistle, and the songs last lyrics:

_Talking only me and you_

_Talking only me and you._

Considering the abomination that had been Rachel and Finn's number, Tommy knew that they had pretty much nailed the song. He nodded at his friends in the band, who had played him in.

It turned out they were the last ones to sing- Artie had been going to sing a duet with Brittany, but for reasons that he had only the vaguest of understandings of, they opted not to perform.

He had no idea how things would have turned out had the voting been based on merit, but when the ballots were counted, he and Quinn had won. Quinn was clearly shocked at this; Tommy wasn't, and much as he wanted to celebrate his victory, the part of him that always had to know things couldn't let this go.

After the choir let out, he cornered Rachel. "You want to explain to me why this just happened?"

Rachel had a pretty lousy poker face, but she managed to keep her gaze steady. "I don't know what you're talking about," she said shakily.

"Come on, Rachel. You corner Quinn and tell her that we should do a duet together. You do that number, which played like some kind of ode to child molesting, and then we follow it up. And I'm pretty sure that you voted for us."

"It was a secret ballot," Rachel proffered weakly.

"I voted for Kurt," he told her bluntly. "If everybody had voted for themselves, which I'm willing to bet half of us did, Kurt should've won. That leaves you and Finn."

Rachel actually seemed a little ashamed. "Finn and I know how good we are," she told him truthfully. "We can't be a good club if he and I are grabbing all the good numbers. You've more than demonstrated that you have the voice but not the ambition to be a champion. We figured this would give you a push in the right direction."

"And this had nothing to do with turning me and Quinn into an item?" Tommy asked.

This time the look of surprise on Rachel's face was more genuine. "I realize that it turned out that way, but I'm a lousy matchmaker. Just consider it a dinner out."

"I don't like it when my grandmother pushes me to find a girlfriend," he told her. "Besides, don't you think I'd be dating above my station?"

Rachel looked baffled for several moments, and then finally seemed to come up with an answer. "I never thought I'd end up with Finn," she told him. "Maybe that's one of the other good things about glee. It levels the playing field for all of us."

Tommy thought about this for a few moments after Rachel left. Everything he'd told Quinn was true. To paraphrase another movie, she was out of his league. But what Rachel said was true, at least to a degree.

He had no intention of telling Quinn that; he was already terrified enough. He didn't know if this would qualify for a date, but it was definitely the first time he had been out at night with someone of the opposite sex. The idea of having dinner with the captain of the Cheerios would have sent most of McKinley to the moon; it took all his will power to make sure his shirt was tucked in. (Breadsticks didn't have a dress code, so long as you didn't look like you were homeless.)

Tommy was just as sure that Quinn would be mortified at the thought of being in public with him, but she showed up and seemed only mildly amused at how nervous he seemed to be. Fortunately, they kept the conversation light.

"How can you not like that movie?"

"There were two thousand people on that boat; they had to make one up to tell the story?" he argued. "And he froze to death because he couldn't find a piece of ship big enough? No wonder Dicaprio took four years off; it's a good thing he's a good enough actor that he could recover from that."

"And I guess you thought that whole romance was schlock," Quinn told her.

"Any love story scored by Celine Dion is crap, and we all know it,"

"That's not an answer," Quinn asked, and even though she was smiling, he could sense that there might be a deeper question.

"The romance wasn't real because it wasn't real love," he tried, "We knew it was doomed from act one on. That's not the kind of love I want."

"All right. What's your version of it?"

He gave this a little thought. It wasn't a question he had ever really considered. So he did what he always did when he couldn't find a good example of something. He turned to pop culture.

"I mentioned that I had a lot of reasons for liking _Lost even _though I thought a lot of it didn't work," He held up his hand. "I'm going somewhere with this." One of the things that worked on the show was Desmond's story. You know who he was?"

"The Scottish guy, right?" Quinn nodded.

"The love of his life was Penny. He knew he loved her early on, but he was convinced she was too good for him, and he cast her away. He went on a race around the world, and ended up spending three years of his life pushing a button on a computer. Everyone on that island was happy staying on it. He was the only one who wanted to leave. Because he never stopped loving Penny. And even though the entire world seemed determined to keep them part, she didn't give up on him either. She was literally willing to scour the earth in order to find him. So when they finally were reunited at the end of the fourth season, it _meant _something to me. I actually wept when it happened. Dying for love is one thing; there may be romance in it. Never giving up on love, even when the entire world seems determined to keep you apart, that means something to me. That's the kind of love I want."

Quinn looked at him for so long, he was certain that he had lost her. He had revealed something that for him was very personal, but he figured it just showed him as more of a geek than he actually was. Instead, she looked him in the eye. "When was the last time you were on a date?" she asked.

He still wasn't prepared to answer honestly, so he just said: "Not for awhile."

She took the vouchers for the meal at Breadsticks off the table. "Not for any longer," she told him.

"Just reciting a TV plot counts as romance?" he asked lightly.

"What you did for us in the locker room, it was kind of breathtaking," she told him. "It was a grand gesture. I kind of like those. More than I thought."

The urge to say something about how Rachel and Finn were better at this than they thought went through his mind. He put a breadstick in his mouth instead.

He noticed Brittany at the next table looking sad, and wonder what she would think if she saw this. He decided to do his best not to care.

And for the rest of that night, he managed not to.


	5. Once Upon A Time

**Chapter 4**

**Once Upon A Time**

Considering how big a fan he was of the show, Tommy didn't know why he had gone to such a Byzantine effort to make sure that producing it wasn't seen as his idea. Maybe he was thinking of things in the same way that Rachel and Finn had thrown the duets competition. Maybe he didn't want the headaches of trying to handle the whole thing by himself. Whatever the reason, he had decided to let Kurt and Rachel to be the one to float the idea to Mr. Schuster rather than him.

"You want to do _Into The Woods _as the school play this year?" he had asked when the idea was poised.

"It's one of the most accessible of the shows Stephen Sondheim has ever done," Rachel argued. "Add to that, because it practically takes place in the middle of fairy tales, I don't see how anybody on either the school board or the parents group could have any objections to putting in on."

"Plus we could use the ticket sales as proceeds to buy the airfare we need to get to Nationals," Kurt added.

Mr. Schuster was a little reluctant to put in a second major project with Sectionals little more than a month away, but he didn't seem that ill-disposed. It was then Tommy decided to weigh in with his opinion, one that _might _have scuttled the whole project.

"If we're going to do this, we need to do it right," he told them.

"Meaning?"

"Both acts," he told them.

Everybody else in the classroom was puzzled by this seemingly bizarre condition. Kurt and Rachel, however, knew what he was talking about, and actually seemed a bit worried about it.

"I thought the whole point of doing a show would be, like, doing a show," Mercedes asked. "What are we missing here?"

"The reason that this show gets produced in middle schools everywhere is because they only do the first act," Rachel admitted. "That one is fluffy and light enough so that it can be considered child-safe."

"What happens in the second act?"

"People start dying," Kurt told them. "How many is a matter for debate, but I think at least five or six people get killed."

Mr. Schuster had to know enough about theater to know about the play's shortcoming. The fact that he hadn't dismissed this outright had to mean that he was at least considering it.

"To do only half the show loses the entire point of it," Tommy argued. "The whole point of _Into the Woods _is that there is no such thing as happily ever after. At some point children have to grow into adults, and we all face our nightmares. The last two numbers say the exact kind of message that our parent have been putting in our heads for years. Isn't that the whole point of coming here in the first place?"

He realized he had put a lot more of himself out there than he had wanted to, but why else had he gone to Kurt and Rachel with this idea at all? And it apparently had done its job, because Mr. Schue finally said. "OK, I'll persuade Figgins.

It was only after hearing this that Tommy realized he had committed himself to performing on stage in front of the student body, something that he was still trying to gain enough willpower to do at Sectionals about five weeks from now.

_I really gotta think these through before I launch these kinds of ideas._

He had expected Rachel and Kurt to start preaching for themselves in the lead roles, but then he remembered _Into The Woods, _for all intents and purposes, didn't have leads in the same way that other Sondheim shows did. Also, it turned out the play had eighteen parts in it, which was still more than there were in _New Directions_, even if Puckerman hadn't been stuck in juvie. Tommy would have suggested his friends in the band, but that would just cause them to be short musicians. They were going to need to audition, which might lead to a whole new of problems.

The first of _his _problems came when Quinn approached and asked him for advice on what role she should try out for.

"You get any ideas from the book?" he asked.

"You seem to know this show better than almost everyone else," she told him. "Maybe you can tell me which part I'd be best suited for."

"Well, the good thing about just about every show Stephen Sondheim has ever written is that there are usually lots of great roles for women," he told her honestly. "And there are at least four really strong roles for females with some really superb numbers for all of them."

Quinn had read the book. "Rachel tells me she wants to be Cinderella," she told him.

"That's something of a shock," he admitted. "Given how big a diva she is, I figured she'd go for the Witch."

Quinn started laughing. "Little Miss Schoolgirl do half the show wearing an ugly mask?"

"Bernadette Peters had the role on Broadway. It's not quite Streisand, but I'm pretty sure that's gotta be on her top ten list of Idols. You gotta figure..."

Quinn stopped laughing. "You think I could pull it off?"

"Honestly?" he asked. "The first person I thought of doing this was Santana."

"Yeah, that doesn't take that much of a stretch to go there," Quinn said thoughtfully. "She'd probably embrace the whole thing, even if she had to wear that kind of makeup for the first act."

Tommy wasn't quite listening. Had he any preference for casting, Quinn would've probably made the ideal Little Red Riding Hood. She had the right kind of build and energy for this part, and it was one of the bigger ones. Still... "You know any numbers for Cinderella?"

Quinn looked a little shocked at this. "I think so,"

"Then audition for me right now."

She considered this for a moment. "Her big number, the one where she leaves her shoe behind for the prince?"

Tommy inwardly winced. This was one of the most difficult numbers in the entire score. He was pretty sure Rachel would have trouble with it. But if she wanted this part, she had to give it her all. "I'll accompany you," he told her, and walked over to the piano. "Just give me a second.

He started playing. Quinn closed her eyes, and began:

_He's a very smart prince,_

_He's a prince who prepares,_

_Knowing this time I'd run from him,_

_He spread pitch on the stairs._

_I was caught unawares._

_And I thought: "Well, he cares"_

_This is more than just malice._

_Better stop and take stock_

_While you're standing here stuck on the steps of the palace._

_You think, what do you want?_

_You think, make a decision._

_Why not stay and be caught?_

_You think well, it's a thought_

_What would be his response?_

_But then what if he knew _

_Who you were when you know_

_That you're not what he thinks_

_That he wants?_

_And then what if you are_

_What a prince would envision?_

_Although how can you know_

_Who you are til you know_

_What you want, which you don't?_

_So then which do you pick:_

_Where you're safe, out of sight,_

_And yourself, but where everything's wrong?_

_Or where everything's right, but you know that you'll never belong?_

_And whichever you pick,_

_Do it quick,_

_'Cause you're starting to stick to the steps of the palace?_

_It's your first big decision,_

_The Choice isn't easy to make,_

_To arrive at a ball_

_Is exciting and all -_

_Once you're there, though, it's scary_

_And it's fun to deceive, when you know you can leave_

_But you have to be wary._

_There's a lot that's at stake,_

_but you've stalled long enough,_

_'Cause you're still standing stuck in the stuff on the steps..._

_Better run along home_

_And avoid the collision_

_Even though you don't care,_

_you'll be better of there_

_Where there's nothing to choose_

_So there's nothing to lose._

_So you pry up your shoes._

_Then from out of the blue,_

_and without any guide_

_You know what your decision is,_

_Which is not to decide._

_You'll just leave him a clue:_

_For example, a shoe._

_And then see what he'll do._

_Now it's he and not you_

_who is stuck with a shoe_

_In a stew, in the goo,_

_And you've learned something, too,_

_Something you never knew,_

_On the steps of the palace!_

When Schuster and Pillsbury, who were unofficial casting directors, heard her nail it, they were bowled over. Even Rachel, who'd auditioned first, had to admit that she'd gotten it right the first time, and was willing to yield the part to Quinn. She took the slightly larger, but slightly more restrained, role of the Baker's wife. She didn't even seem to mind when Finn ended up with the role of Prince Charming.

Maybe she didn't mind, because in the second act, the Prince revealed himself to be an adulterous swine, having an illicit relationship with her. It was a little ill-spirited, but maybe she saw it as the equivalent of her real relationship. Quinn didn't seem to mind, so neither would he.

The rest of the auditions what pretty much first come, first serve, with the exception of the role of the Witch. Apparently, take no prisoners Santana didn't want to go anywhere near the makeup she would have to wear for the first hour of the role.

Tommy had been sure Mercedes would jump at the chance to finally be playing a big, belt-out role, but strangely enough, she had to be talked into it by Kurt and himself.

"I finally get the lead role, and I have to look like a damn hag for most of it," she groused a little.

"You're telling me that Mercedes Jones would rather slink in the background, then have the chance to belt out a couple of the greatest numbers in the history of musical theater?" Kurt was clearly shocked. "Have you been replaced by a robot?"

"Maybe I'm just not that wild about getting typecast as a villain this early on," she told them.

"Mercedes, do you know who the second person was to play this role after Bernadette Peters left the show?" Tommy asked. "Phylicia Rashad. Mrs. Huxtable herself. And she owned it. You think she gave a damn about how it made her look?"

That apparently was enough to push the diva towards it. Which probably made the most sense. Mercedes might have been his second choice, but once they heard her perform 'Stay With Me', he realized he'd been ranking her far too low.

_Into the Woods: Final Role Call_

Cinderella - Quinn Fabray

Jack - Kurt Hummel

Little Red Riding Hood - Santana Lopez

Cinderella's Prince/Wolf - Finn Hudson

Rapunzel - Brittany Pierce

Rapunzel's Prince - Mike Cheng

The Baker - Tommy Grayson

The Baker's Wife - Rachel Berry

The Witch - Mercedes Jones

The Narrator/Mysterious Man - Artie Abrams

Grandmother/ Jack's Mother - Tina Cohen-Chang

Even though he had been one of the people behind the scenes pushing to get _Into the Woods _to be their school production, Tommy was surprised- and to be perfectly honest, a little appalled to find that he had been cast in one of the most important roles. He would've been just happy appearing in a much smaller role - Rapunzel's prince suited him much more in both the number and temperament of the kind of role he wanted.

But as soon as the show was nailed down, everybody else seemed to have a pretty solid idea of who wanted to do what, and somehow both Rachel and Kurt began pushing him for one of the larger ones. They had been more concerned in getting spear-carriers for the smaller roles that were left, and before he could lean towards them, they were all gone, and he was one of the leads. He might have argued more, but before they could start yelling, they had to begin rehearsals. (The turnaround time was so rushed because they didn't want to have this interfering that much with the lead up to Sectionals.)

Tommy had known that he was going to have to get over his nerves a lot quicker than he had wanted too, but he had been hoping that it wouldn't have to happen in front of the student body, most of which, now had good reason to be hostile towards him. As it was, a role which he had more or less memorized by the time he was twelve was becoming a nightmare to get through.

Perhaps he shouldn't have been that surprised that Rachel was the one who came to him two days after the rehearsals began.

"Everyone's giving Kurt and me the credit for coming up with this play," she started slowly. "Which is really kind of amazing, since I'm pretty sure this was all your idea."

"I thought the last school production was pretty much a wall-to-wall suckfest," Tommy said slowly. "And considering that you basically abandoned it a week before it opened, it doesn't take a genius to see that it needed help."

"It also doesn't mean we had to pick up the slack," Rachel replied. "I wanted to do a show, too, but I probably would've played for something like _Funny Girl _or _Grease. _Why this show?"

Tommy didn't have to think that much. "When I was nine years old, my grandparents got me the DVD for the original Broadway cast of _Into the Woods. _My grandparents had been trying to instill a love of music and theater in me for a couple of years, and were mostly coming up short. But when I saw this production, heard that cast sing these songs, suddenly I understood what theater could do. Suddenly, I realized the potential of what Stephen Sondheim was capable of. I've listened to the soundtracks of a lot of shows ever since, but this show transformed my life." He looked Rachel. "I know that kids my age are supposed to have fantasies about winning the World Series for the Reds or becoming the next Steve Jobs. I just wanted to hear the right voice singing Putting It Together."

"That's your favorite Sondheim?" Rachel said warily. "Not 'Send In The Clowns' or 'Being Alive'?"

Tommy gave a very self-conscious smile. "I worship Mandy Patinkin. I realize even among Broadway freaks that makes me a very specific ubernerd. " Even now, among one of the performers he admired most, he refused to admit his greatest quirk.

Rachel looked at him. 'Why is it you practically had to be dragged kicking and screaming into glee?" she asked earnestly. "Was it all the abuse we take from just about everybody else, because you really don't seem to be the kind of person that cares what other people think, certainly not the student body?"

He had expected a question like this from just about everyone in the club by now, especially given the unspoken understanding that everybody seemed to have that he had been the one behind the attack on Cliff.

"Honestly, Rachel, I have other ambitions that don't involve performing. Dreams that I want to carry out on my own."

Rachel looked like her jaw was going to drop. "You're basically a piano prodigy and a brilliant singer. Is there anything you can't do?"

"Successfully play any sport, perform elementary calculus, and explain what the hell what was going on in the final season of _Lost," _Tommy told her. "But seriously, there is something you can help me with, and considering you're probably an expert at it."

Rachel actually looked a little surprised to hear this, which had been his intention; he had already bared enough of his soul, and he didn't want to do any more. "What exactly do you have a problem with?"

"A pretty lousy case of stage fright." He paused. "That's the other big reason I didn't audition. I have enough problems performing in front of everyone in Glee."

"Well, if you can get through this play, you'll probably be set for Sectionals," Rachel's tone was all business. "I think we need to get started now."

"The sooner, the better."

"You've clearly got a good imagination, so I want you to try and picture the whole auditorium as full as it's going to be on opening night," Rachel told him. "Normally, I'd tell you to close your eyes and do it, but I think that you're smart enough to do that on your own."

Unfortunately, she was right on this. It didn't take much thought to picture the audience filled with people. He didn't recognize any of them, but he was pretty sure that they all hated him. Why this many people would've come to the performance was just to boo him was a little beyond him, but having seen what happened last year, he couldn't admit that it was outside the realm of possibility.

"OK, now what?" he asked.

"Now comes the hard part, you have to forget that they're in the room," Rachel said slowly. "Now I want you to turn around, and just focus on me. Most of the time you're going to focus on other performers, but seeing where we are.."

"I get it," he said quickly. The pitch of his voice was beginning to rise just a bit. Why an imaginary crowd was beginning to panic him just went to show how deep this fear was.

He never knew whether Rachel had picked this song on purpose, or whether it was simple coincidence - after all, they did need to rehearse it. All he knew was that she was singing:

_You've changed._

_You're daring._

_You're different in the woods._

_More sure,_

_More sharing,_

_You're getting us through the woods._

_If you could see-_

_You're not the man who started,_

_And much more open-hearted._

_Then I knew _

_You to be._

There was a pause before he started his part. Not significant, but he was pretty sure Rachel noticed.

_It takes two._

_I thought one was enough,_

_It's not true._

_It takes two of us._

_You came through._

_When the journey was rough._

_It took you._

_It took two of us._

_It takes care._

_It takes patience and fear and despair to change_

_Though you swear_

_To Change_

_Who can tell if you do?_

_It takes two._

He was pretty sure his voice was a little bumpier, but Rachel either didn't notice or had channeled her inner performer when she ploughed on;

_You've changed._

_You're thriving._

_There's something about the woods._

_Not just surviving_

_You're blossoming in the woods._

_At home I'd fear_

_We'd stay the same forever._

_And then out there_

_You're passionate, charming, considerate, clever:_

Did she mean it?

_It takes one_

_To begin, but then when you've begun_

_It takes two of you._

_It's no fun,_

_But what needs to be done you can do._

_When there's two of you._

_If I dare_

_It's because I'm becoming aware of us_

_As a pair of us_

_Each accepting a share_

_Of what's there._

They hadn't yet worked on their choreography (another reason he had liked _Into the Woods _was that there was next to no dancing in it) but Rachel had clearly spent a large part of her life practicing this. They moved more towards each other as they wrapped it up.

_We've changed._

_We're strangers._

_I'm meeting you in the woods._

_Who minds what dangers?_

_I know we'll get past the woods._

_And once we're past_

_Let's hope the changes last._

_Beyond woods,_

_Beyond witches and slippers and hoods_

_Just the two of us_

_Beyond lies,_

_Safe at home with our beautiful prize_

_Just the few of us._

_It takes trust._

_It takes just a bit more,_

_and we're done._

_We want four,_

_We had none,_

_We've got three._

_We need one._

_It takes two._

The number was one of the more buoyant in the show, but when it was over, Tommy felt as if he were on the verge of collapse. He thought he was doing a good job of hiding it.

He wasn't. "Are you okay?" Rachel asked.

Tommy thought about lying, then realized that she, of all the members of the team, was least likely to be fooled. "I think I'm going to piss my pants," he admitted.

Rachel was nearly as modest as Kurt was, but she didn't flinch at this locker room talk. "I don't think I'd use those terms, but I've felt that way from time to time."

"You never seem to show it," he told her.

"I've gotten used it. After a couple of times it goes away." She hesitated. "Or you're so used to the feeling it doesn't matter."

This was not the lesson he wanted to hear. "Then I guess we'd better do this again," Tommy told her. "Hopefully, it'll kick in eventually."

Rachel didn't raise an objection. He knew for all the crap half of New Directions gave her, she rehearsed more than anybody on the team.

"Thanks, by the way," he told her.

She didn't show it, but she didn't get thanked that much either. He knew it meant something to her.

When it came to learning his part, he had some of the least work to do of any of the others - he'd seen the show so many times on DVD, he practically had both the book and the score memorized. But he was feeling a lot shakier than just about anyone else in the cast. Even Mike, who fully admitted he was the least talented singers, and was not at all comfortable with having to do two pretty important duets in the middle, seemed more comfortable in his skin than he did.

Rachel and Mercedes, who had the majority of their scenes with him, didn't say anything for a while, because he was getting through the read-through without blowing his lines, but on the day of the final dress rehearsal, they and Quinn finally confronted him.

"We've been cutting you slack because technically speaking you're still the new guy," Mercedes told him, "but we're less than twelve hours before the curtain goes up, and you still look like you'd rather be anywhere else."

Tommy really didn't want to have this conversation, even with people whose opinions he respected. "I don't know what your problems are," he told them. "I haven't missed a cue."

"If performing were just about memorizing your lines, a lot more people could do it," Rachel replied. He must have looked doubtful at that, because she followed it. "Putting on this show was basically your idea, and you're still acting like it's homework."

"Well, then maybe I should've kept my mouth shut," Tommy said coldly. "At least I wouldn't be feeling like I was going to explode and implode at the same time."

"I don't buy for one second that this is just stage fright," Quinn said bluntly. "I know you get nervous about some things, but I've never seen you afraid."

"Then you clearly don't know me very well. I get scared as much as any of you do," he tried.

"Speak for yourself," Mercedes told him.

"Maybe being on stage doesn't frighten you, but I'm willing to bet there are some things that make you want to crawl under your covers, and pray for daylight," Tommy told them.

"You're changing the subject, and you're still lying," Quinn argued. "This isn't about us; it's about you being so stiff out there, you're in danger of falling over."

They were right about this, but he'd be damned if he'd turn his life into a therapy session. He therefore tried to deflect. "How much of this about you being worried how I'll do at Sectionals?"

"For crying out loud, not everything is about winning!" Rachel must have been getting exasperated, because she sounded truly agitated for the first time since he'd joined glee.

"Don't shit a shitter, Rachel," Tommy fired back. "All you give a crap about is being the best at everything having to do with this club. You're honestly telling me that this isn't about my making you look bad?"

Rachel blushed a little, but she didn't back away from this.

"You're very good at being honest about everybody else," Mercedes fired back. "Why the hell doesn't that apply to you?"

"For Christ's sake, this is a school play, not a blind audition in front of Andrew Lloyd Weber! What difference does it make if I'm a little stiff?" By now, his voice had gone up a couple of octaves, but he no longer cared. He wanted them to just let this go, but there didn't seem to be much chance of that.

Rachel and Mercedes looked like they were going to press this, but at this point Quinn told them to give them a couple of minutes alone

"Please tell me that there is something real behind this intervention then the egos of the biggest divas in this school," Tommy said the second that they were gone.

"I'm just trying to figure this out," she told him. "This wasn't an idle thing for you, you spent a week doing ground work for it. You get one of the biggest parts in the show, and ever since then you've been acting like we killed a puppy in front of you. "

"That'll teach me not to try so hard," He finally gave a sigh. "This is an important play to me. It's part of the reason I fell in love with the theater. And I'll admit, part of it is because I'm so scared of screwing up in front of the student body in this show, of all shows." Tommy looked at her. "I'm about to make my stage debut. Isn't that enough of a reason to be a little wooden?"

Quinn considered this. "It's a reason to be concerned. I know it bothers me half the time when I perform. But don't tell me the guy who went into the boys locker room and assaulted the star linesman is scared of just that."

"Does _everybody _know about that?" He knew he was dodging the issue, so he decided to level a little. "Maybe I'd have had less trouble if I was playing a different part. But I kind of have issues with some of the lines I have to say in the second act."

Quinn didn't argue with that. Clearly she'd seen some of his wincing through at least two of the last numbers. "The song after Rachel gets killed or the one where you run away from your problems?"

"Both of them actually." There was no good lead into this, and the only reason he'd raise the question in the first place is because Quinn had mentioned some of the hellfire she'd been going through ever since she'd moved back in with her mother. "Have you even seen your father since your mother left?"

Quinn shook her head. "Frankly, I'm not sure I could handle it if I saw him. He knows better by now." She paused. "This about what happened to your mom?"

"More like what my father did. I say I'm okay over the last six years, but frankly I'm not wild about having to basically talk out some of my issues right in front of any father."

"Even one who you know sits next to you in Trig?" Quinn was trying to be light, but she knew than this was a sore point with him.

"I know there are some people who think of art as therapy," Tommy told her. "I'm not one of them. I went through enough of it on my own to not want it in my spare time. And whatever issues I have with my father, I really don't think doing it in front of half the school is the best place."

Quinn agreed with that much even if she doubted some of the last statement. "You really think they're going to give that much of a damn?" she asked.

"Says the woman who was the poster child for this last year? I'm sorry, Quinn, but I don't think either of us can take the high road here," he told her. He hadn't, but he knew he was dancing very close to the edge.

To his immense relief, she didn't take it that personally. "Half of the people are going to think I'm doing some kind of wish fulfillment out there," she admitted, "and they're probably reading something into the whole Finn as Prince Charming thing, but I'm not naive enough to think to that I'm that person any more. I don't care what anyone thinks any more. Neither should you."

This part _he _didn't fully believe, but he decided that Quinn was giving him the benefit of the doubt, he should be willing to do the same. "I still probably would've been better off as the Narrator," he told her. "But you're right, this was my idea, I better follow through the rest of the way."

"You wouldn't have liked that. You wouldn't have been able to sing," she pointed out as they went back inside. "And that does matter to you, so don't say otherwise."

He didn't tell that, to a point, the Narrator of the show was in control of his own destiny. Tommy didn't feel in control that way anymore, and would've given anything to feel that way again.

The rest of the rehearsal went fine; at least, no one else bothered to tell him, he was doing this flatly, and there were no hidden surprises before they went onstage. (There had been rumor that Coach Sylvester had been sniffing around the production trying to find ways to shut it down, but even though she considered fairy tales "an infantile subject for an infantile audience" she didn't have any pull that she might've had the show been something a little more risqué.)

So, the show went on, and so did they. Considering that much of the first act was high comedy (and what wasn't was considered safe enough to perform in grade schools across the country) everything seemed to go very well. The extras they had cast to do small roles throughout the show didn't raise any troubles, and didn't seem to have much of a problem with learning the lines or the work. (From his vantage point, he thought that the actors who played Cinderella's stepsisters were very good, considering they had to go through more punishment than just about every other character in Act I). Even Mike, who had expressed dismay at having to do a duet with the show's best male singer, acquitted himself well in the duet between the Princes in the middle of Act I. He had more talent than he was willing to give himself credit for.

The second act had taken a fair amount of work, and not just from the prop department.(It is not easy to make an entire set shake when you've blown your budget on making a fake beanstalk.) Mr. Schuster had to fight to keep the guts of the second act in the play, especially the scene between Prince Charming and the Baker's Wife, which begins with flirtation, and ends with her being crushed by the giant. They had only gotten away with some of the violence by implying there was a lot less than there was. The fate of the royal family could be read either way, and no one was quite sure what happened to the Witch. (Rachel was sure she had survived; Tommy was no less sure she had died.)

But the overall effect seemed to be working. He had no idea if the audience, having gotten high comedy in the first act, would be accepting of what happened in the second act. It seemed to be going over well, but he wasn't sure if it would last. He knew that he had some important lines to sing in the last half hour, and, all motivational speaking aside, he still wasn't sure whether he could do it.

Then suddenly, he was on stage walking towards Artie. (They really had to go through a _very _big suspension of disbelief to _not _know two different actors were playing the same role.)

"I thought you were dead," he said.

"Not completely," Artie told them. He wondered if everyone chuckling had any better idea as to how this was possible. "Are we ever?"

"As far as I'm concerned, you are," Tommy yelled.

"Is that true?"

"It's because of you, all of this has happened!"

"I climbed into the garden to steal your mother a gift, and I foolishly took a handful of beans for myself." Artie paused. "How was I to know? How are we ever to know?"

Tommy reminded himself this was just a play.

"When she died, I ran from my guilt. Now aren't you doing the same thing?"

They didn't notice how long it took him to answer that question. "No"

"Aren't you running away?"

No one in the audience knew that it took Tommy a few seconds longer than necessary to hit his cue.

_No more questions._

_Please._

_No more tests._

_Comes the day you say: "What for?"_

_Please - no more._

Artie didn't hesitate.

_They disappoint,_

_They disappear,_

_They die, but they don't._

_They disappoint in turn, I fear_

_Forgive, though, they won't._

Tommy didn't need a minute this time, but it was a near thing.

_No more riddles._

_No more jests. _

_No more curses you can't undo_

_Left by fathers you never knew,_

_No more quests._

_No more feelings._

_Time to shut the door._

_Just - no more._

Artie was a much more experienced performer than him; he could tell that Tommy was a lot more brittle, so he just did his part as best he could.

_Running away - let's do it,_

_Free from the ties that bind._

_No more despair_

_Or burdens to bear_

_Out there in the yonder._

_Running away - go to it._

_Where do you have in mind?_

_Have to take care:_

_Unless there's a "where,"_

_You'll only be wandering blind._

_Just more questions,_

_Different kind._

_Where are we to go?_

_Where are we ever to go?_

_Running away - we'll do it._

_Why sit around, resigned?_

_Trouble is, son,_

_The farther your run,_

_The more you'll feel undefined._

_For what you have left undone,_

_and, more, what you've left behind._

_We disappoint,_

_We leave a mess,_

_We die, but we don't._

It took a lot of effort for him to do his part.

_We disappoint in turn, I guess_

_Forget. though, they won't._

_Like father, like son._

Artie had enough ability to wheel off mysteriously. Tommy was clearly in anguish. It helped his performance, if nothing else.

_No more giants_

_Waging war._

_Can't we just pursue our lives_

_With our children and our wives?_

_Till that happier day arrives,_

_How do you ignore?_

_All the witches,_

_All the curses,_

_All the wolves, all the lies,_

_The false hopes, the goodbyes,_

_the reverses._

_All the wondering what even worse is_

_Still in store?_

_All the children..._

_All the giants..._

_No more._

The applause may have been the biggest of the night, but he barely heard it. Only Santana and Kurt who passed him, as he exited, noticed the tears in his eyes.

He managed to pull himself together for the next few minutes, but by far the most difficult emotional number lay ahead. He wondered if Rachel would've had the same problems he would, but technically speaking she was better off dead.

Quinn had the more painful part. The dialogue where Cinderella had to essentially break off her relationship with Prince Charming was probably something she didn't need to go through again.

Then came the number that essentially set up the end of the finale. Little Red Riding Hood, who's been the greatest source of strength throughout the show (in that sense, at least, Santana was perfectly cast) now facing real death, becomes frightened at last and misses her mother. Not for the first time, Tommy found himself wondering what Santana's home life was like. She had managed to avoid discussing it for the last year.

Then, as he was sometimes, the music got to him. Not the best thing to do, considering he was on next, but that was the power of Sondheim.

_Mother cannot guide you._

_Now you're on your own._

_Only me beside you._

_Still, you're not alone._

_No one is alone, truly._

_No one is alone._

_Sometimes people leave you._

_Halfway through the wood._

_Others may deceive you._

_You decide what's good._

_You decide alone._

_But no one is alone._

The scene then changed (as best as it could) to the Baker and Jack. Even knowing it was make-believe, Tommy didn't like telling him about the death of his mother. Jack vowed to kill in vengeance, and he had to talk him down.

Quinn and he alternated the rest of the song.

_Mother isn't here now._

_Wrong things, right things_

_Who knows what'd she say?_

_Who can say what's true._

_Nothing's quite so clear now._

_Do things, fight things._

_Fell you've lost your way._

_You decide, but you are not alone._

_Believe me._

_No one is alone._

_You just move a finger._

_Say the slightest word._

_Something's bound to linger,_

_Be heard._

_No one acts alone._

_Careful, no one is alone._

_People make mistakes._

_Fathers, mothers,_

_People make mistakes._

_Holding to their own._

_Thinking they're alone._

_Honor their mistakes._

_Fight for their mistakes. _

_Everybody makes_

_One another's._

_Terrible mistakes._

_Witches can be right._

_Giants can be good._

_You decide what's right._

_You decide what's good._

_Just remember._

_Someone is on your side._

_Someone else is not_

_While we're seeing our side -_

_Our side_

_Maybe we forgot._

_They are not alone._

_No one is alone._

The show had gone over spectacularly, which, considering how many people seemed to openly loathe the Glee club, came as a huge surprise to Tommy. He wasn't the kind of person who looked for applause, but he seemed to get nearly as much as Finn and Rachel did, and for the briefest of moments, he began to understand why so many of the Glee clubbers performed.

However, rather than go out for the after-party, he had begged off. He needed to decompress a little, and he wanted to congratulate his friends in the orchestra who had done so well, and who he hung out with a lot less these days.

"Was it everything you hoped it would be?" He looked up to see that Quinn had apparently not gone out to get pizza with everyone else.

"I don't know. Nothing's ever as good as the buildup," he said slowly.

"Are you okay? Both Artie and Kurt thought you we're going to have some kind of breakdown," Quinn asked.

"There are just some times that I really miss my mother," he admitted. "I mean, my grandparents are wonderful, but..." He didn't finish.

"You know, you can talk about these things," she told him. "We all support each other in this club, and you've more than proved that you belong here.

"You're not going to tell me that 'no one is alone', are you?" he tried to joke.

"I'm not nearly as cute as Rachel when it comes to thinking that way," she told him.

He considered this. "All right, then answer me this: are you my girlfriend?" Tommy looked at her. "We have been hanging out a lot, but still.."

She thought this over. "This may be the first honest relationship I've been in," Quinn told him. "I was never honest with Finn, and Puck and I had nothing in common except a child that neither one of us is ever going to raise. I think I'd like a real relationship for once."

"You're not worried that it'll knock you back down to the bottom of the food chain?" This was a very real question.

"I think today you proved you have leading man qualities, and I think you do. On and off the stage."

"Show's over. And I think we just proved that happy endings aren't real/" Tommy reminded her.

"How about we just try to enjoy the moment for now? Maybe we don't worry about "happy ever after."

He walked over to her. "I think I'll settle for a slice of pizza for now," Tommy told her. "Tomorrow, it's back to prepping for sectionals. But tonight, I'll settle for a moment in the woods."

The two of them walked out. But even though he enjoyed the evening, a part of him was considering the same thing he had always considered when listening to the show in any form. The last line that Quinn herself had delivered after the chorus of happy ever after's.

_I wish..._


	6. Finally Being Kissed

Chapter 5

Finally Being Kissed

Tommy had never seen the movie _She's Out of My League _- it sounded like the kind of film he'd avoid on principle- but he was more than familiar with the concept. And just as he had joked to Kurt about him having to raise his standards if he was attracted to him, he wondered if Quinn had to be put through the same pressure to be going out of with him by the rest of the Cheerios.

Tommy knew that he was probably underselling his looks. He didn't have the acne that bothered half of Lima, his haircut was attractive when he bothered to comb it, and he only had wear his glasses for reading, but even by the most charitable of estimations, he was best a seven, and Quinn was... well, Quinn. This was shallow and he knew it, but he could deal with that. More to the point was his issues. It had taken him a lot of effort just to audition for glee. To put himself out there for another person, even a little, was a major effort, and he was nowhere near ready for this particular conversation with her.

He knew that there was some whispering going around that Quinn was slumming by being seen socially, but he could live with that. Finn surely wasn't bothered by being seen with Rachel, and in all honesty, he didn't give a damn what people thought most of the time. And then he heard that Puckerman was no longer in Juvie.

There weren't a lot of people who scared Tommy, but Noah Puckerman had to be in the top five, and he was the only one who wasn't dead or fictional. He knew that Puckerman had mellowed a bit since joining Glee, but his idea of being laid-back was limiting the number of time he'd put the high school undesirables in the dumpster to once a week. He'd always wondered why Puckerman had never bothered with the orchestra before he'd joined New Directions (as he was pretty sure that they were lower on the food chain even than show choir) but guessed that it had something to do with the fact that they were not _obvious _losers. Of all the people in the club, he had the least respect for him.

Now Tommy knew that Quinn and Puckerman had been through since Quinn had revealed he was the father of her child (and to be accurate, they had never been together in the first place). He knew that Santana had been an item with Noah since early last year, and was still carrying a torch for him. Nevertheless, when he heard that the mohawk wearing line-backer was out and looking for him, he got very concerned that it was not to congratulate him for his performance in _Into the Woods._

_The guy just did a stretch in Juvenile detention. You really think he's angry enough to want to go back there._

It was rational, clearheaded thinking; problem was, as Tommy himself had demonstrated, high school is not often a place where that kind of mindset prevails. Hormones trumped reason, more often than not.

But there wasn't much point in running or trying to hide, not in the same building, certainly not when they shared the same after school activity. So he decided to quit screwing around and deal with it.

On the way there, however, he got sidetracked. David Karofsky, another one of those football pricks, out of left field shoved Kurt into a locker. Torn between wanting to holler at Karofsky or aid his friend, he moved on the side of compassion.

"You okay?" He knew the second he said it how immensely stupid the question was. Everybody in glee took a fair amount of bullying as a matter of course; Kurt was going to get pushed around just for existing. He settled for helping him to his feet.

"Aren't you afraid of being seen with the school queer?" There was definitely venom in his tone; Karofsky must have said something particularly sweet to him.

"I think the whole school knows I'm past that point," he told him. "Shall we go through the motions?"

"Excuse me?"

"We go to Figgis' office, I tell him what I saw, he brings in Karofsky, sternly lectures him against this kind of behavior, we all say we've learned our lesson, and the next chance he gets Karofsky spits in your food."

It said something about how badly Kurt was hurting that his reaction was: "Why bother? Turner in history will just dock me for being late."

This had a mixture of cynicism and pain that Kurt rarely openly demonstrated. He decided to dig a little. "So besides being attacked by a homophobic asshole, is there anything else that makes the world a little darker today?"

"It's not enough to be the high school punching bag for every ignoramus out there?" Kurt flared. "Hell, you might not want to stand so close to me. Lord knows what rumors would start by association."

"I care more about what's going on then what this high school does," Tommy replied. "I'd think you know that by now."

"Sometimes, when I'm performing, I can block out all of the venom that's there," Kurt told him. "And other times, I just want to get the hell out of this town, and never look back."

"I feel the same way a lot of the time," he countered. "And if you asked anyone else in Glee, they'll probably all tell you the same thing."

"It's different in my case, and there's no point in pretending otherwise."

A teacher might have urged patience; Mr. Schuster would have urged letting the normal channels. Tommy knew as well as everybody else in Glee how stacked the system was against them. A couple of months ago, he would have urged caution, too. But he'd seen how truly and utterly indifferent the school was, and it nettled him.

"Where does Puckerman go fourth period?" he asked instead.

"Chemistry," Kurt seemed a little nonplused by this remark. "What are you thinking?"

"Two birds, one stone."

It shouldn't have been that difficult to run him down; as a general rule, Puckerman avoided being seen in class. But Tommy figured he wouldn't want to risk being caught flying too close to the edge, and was at least going through the motions. They had to wait until class was over to find him, and by then, he was talking to Artie.

"I understand you've been looking for me," he told Puckerman as he walked right up to the man who still seemed to tower over him.

"I figured I'd run into you at lunch," Puckerman didn't seem his usual brutal self. "Look, I realize this is something you obviously can't take credit for, but you did give Cliff the ultimate in cold showers three weeks ago, right?

"The perpetrator of that event was masked and used a fake voice," Tommy countered. "I believe they still have not identified him."

Puckerman nodded at this. "Stick with your story. You're really good at the James Bond stuff."

"Depends which Bond. Sean Connery would be subtle and disguise himself. Daniel Craig would have just beat the crap out of him without thinking twice." Tommy replied. "But then, I've never much cared for James Bond."

The idea he would actually do anything that would win Noah Puckerman's approval seemed to be part of some alternate universe. Nevertheless, he did seem to be nodding at this. "Well, it's good to know that whoever did this has the brains and the balls to take on some of the assholes on the football team. I've wanted to take a shot at Cliff for the last year and a half. Now, it seems someone has a way of getting the message across."

"If I knew what you were talking about, I guess I'd consider it a compliment coming from someone like yourself." Tommy decided to get down to business. "Speaking in abstracts, I believe there is another jock on your team who seems to have made it his life's work to make ," he looked at Kurt but made no other gestures, "a mutual acquaintance of ours even more hellish than usual."

"You mean Karofsky swinging at Kurt," Puckerman had apparently decided to abandon the hypothetical. " I think sometimes you just have to be straight, no offense intended."

"Maybe you know better than me," Tommy asked. "This just the usual glee club is the scum of the universe, or is that actually something that requires adult supervision?"

He thought that he'd been too obscure, but it seemed he'd underestimated the Jewish jock. "Guy talks shit like everyone else. Never seemed to be the type to follow through."

"I know doing favors kind of goes against the Noah Puckerman mission statement, but we have to look after our own, and sure as shit, the faculty won't," Tommy told him.

Kurt had been quiet up until now. "Look, I appreciate what you're trying to do, but as much as I don't like getting pushed around, I'm not a fan of doing it to someone else."

Tommy was uncomfortable with the idea, too. If you'd asked him a week ago about this kind of behavior, he'd've quoted one of his grandmother's favorite sayings: "An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind." This wasn't going to solve anything, and might make the situation worse for all of them.

"For now, all I want is for you to keep an eye on Karofsky," he settled for saying. "See if there's anyway to figure out what's he doing, and if we can stop this before it gets worse."

"Half the team likes Karofsky. Every time we have a practice session, there's a good chance one half's gonna swing at the other half."

"If Karofsky keeps going after Kurt, I've got a sinking feeling that'll happen anyway," Tommy pointed out.

He had no idea what role he was going to play in that escalation yet, and even if he did, he doubted he could have done anything differently.

Things got more complicated when glee officially met that afternoon. They learned who their competition at Sectionals was going to be - and it sounded like a mixed bag. Young at Heart was a group of senior citizens in the middle of training for GEDs and had formed an accapella groups.

"What kind of competition is that?" Santana had the temerity to ask. "They're just a bunch of old people singing."

"so are the Rolling Stones," Tommy reminded them. "And half the other bands my grandparents listen to. Age doesn't mean your talent goes away."

The other group was Dalton Prep's The Warblers, a name which sounded vaguely familiar to Tommy because he was pretty sure they'd competed at a National level at some point in the past. If they really were New Directions main competition, they were going to have some really problems when they faced off in three weeks time.

This week's assignment also sounded vaguely familiar- Mr. Schuster had given it to them last year, or at least a variation on it. It was time for mashup, and once again, it was going to be boys vs. girls. The difference was each side was going to perform a song performed by a group of the opposite sex.

For once, this was actually an area where he thought he might be able to be helpful. When it came to music, Tommy may have been the most liberal person in glee He had always liked performing songs that were traditionally sung by women (Carly Simon and Bjork had always been among his favorite singers to perform), and he'd been envious of Kurt having the stones to perform 'Defying Gravity' the previous year. (He was pretty sure Kurt had sabotaged himself in doing so; the young man hated losing solos to anyone, much less to Rachel.)

So when they broke up into groups a little later, and it was time to begin narrowing the choices as to what to perform, he actually had an idea where he wanted to begin. "But I'm telling you right now, if the Spice Girls and/or Celine Dion enter into this discussion at all, I'm gouging my eardrums out," Kurt told them.

"Our assignment is female-based songs, not performers who just suck," Artie reminded them. "I think we can do better."

"I actually have an idea of a number to start with," Tommy began.

"You're not going to any more of that old rock crap are you?" Puckerman demanded.

"They don't just call it classic rock because it's old," Tommy was actually a little insulted by this. "It's because it's lasted several decades. People like listening to it."

"Old people," Puckerman replied.

He knew he wasn't going to win this argument with words, so he decided to try another way. "I don't know who did this number - I know it was one of those Motown groups, but a lot of them recorded it." In actuality, he knew it from a rerun of a TV show he'd watched with his grandmother. The name escaped him, but he knew it was their intro music.

_Through the mirror of my mind_

_Time after time,_

_I see reflections of you and me._

_Reflections of,_

_The way life used to be._

_Reflections of,_

_The Love you took from me._

_As I peer through the window_

_of lost time._

_Looking over my yesterdays_

_Through all the loves that's gone._

_Destiny._

_Bum-bum-bum_

_All the love that I wasted._

_All those years,_

_All those tears that I've tasted._

_Through the hollow of my tears_

_I see a dream that's lost_

_From the hurt_

_That you have caused._

_Everywhere I turn_

_Seems like everything I see_

_Reflects the love that used to be._

_Reflections of,_

_The way life used to be_

_Reflections of,_

_The love you took from me._

Most of them seemed to like this. Most of them. "Still sounds like you don't know all the words," Puckerman told them.

"You're from another planet, Noah." The second he said he remembered that, despite their pleasant exchange that morning, he was still very afraid of this man. But he had been caught off guard considering this was a song he hadn't sung in more than seven years.

Fortunately, Puckerman was not in the offense taking mood. Finn was a little less so. "Just seems a little less like the assignment. That's kind of a solo with backup, and Mr. Schue kind of wanted it to be a group song."

Tommy might have argued the point a little, if not for two reasons: that _was _part of the assignment, and, even at this juncture, he didn't want or need all the solos. He was still trying to get used to the idea of being evaluated for performing; he didn't want the extra stress.

"All right, but I still think Motown's our best bet - lot of good female groups, lot of great songs," he argued.

There really wasn't much argument there, and they agreed to try and download four or five songs each, and come up with one that would work.

Artie then brought up a different point - that they needed to know something about their competition. Considering the kind of the mess that they had gotten into last year, they knew that they needed to get some kind of look at their opposition. Dalton Prep had been a serious power in show choir for more than twenty years, going head to head with Vocal Adrenaline at Nationals nine times, five in the last ten years. Even the problem of being an all boys school had helped the school more often than it hurt them - they had managed to make nationals last year, and were currently ranked eighth in the country. They weren't as big a gorilla as Shelby had managed at her time at Vocal Adrenaline, but they were close.

"We don't get any ranking for having won sectionals last year?" Tommy asked.

"I think that may the only reason we're there in the first place," Artie pointed out glumly. "Usually the competitions a little weaker at this level. You'll notice neither of last years finalists came even close to the first round this time out."

"As Coach Sylvester would no doubt put it, we're the best of the worst," Finn pointed out.

"You're being far too generous as to terms," Tommy replied, "but I'm guessing finishing last at Regionals doesn't do much to boost your confidence."

He had tread very lightly around this which was as much a sore point for him as it was New Directions. Considering all of the effort he and the rest of the orchestra had done for them all year, he had been a little miffed that none of them had even gotten an invite to the competition. They knew it was a lousy argument- the school barely had enough funds to send the team there- but it still stung a little. And considering that no home bands were allowed - under the rules it would be like giving one team an extra advantage- they all knew that they didn't have a leg to stand on.

"The point is, we need to know how Dalton Prep runs their team," Artie argued. "Which means that one of us has to get inside their rehearsals."

From a clearheaded point of view, it would have made more sense for them to send Tommy - their records didn't stand for much, but everyone from last year, combined with the unexpected success of McKinley's football team did sort of render him the most anonymous possibility. Which is why he was more than a little surprised when Kurt volunteered to do recon.

No one seemed to raise any objection at this, which is why Tommy decided to pull him aside before they got started. "You sure you're okay?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"Because the Kurt I know never misses an opportunity to perform," Tommy asked.

"Maybe I just feel I can pull off the uniform better than you can," Kurt told him. "Would you let this go for now?"

Tommy was wondering if that something to do with what had happened earlier, but he also knew that this was not his area of expertise. He decided to let it go for now, and hope that getting some space from the school would give Kurt some peace.

Unfortunately, there were some other things he wasn't prepared to let go.

For all his worry about Puckerman, it turned out he didn't really have a problem with him seeing Quinn. "I may be a C student, but I'm not a complete moron," he told him. "She and I are never going to work out, and I'm pretty sure Santana would kill me in my sleep if I tried anything like it." He was pretty serious about it, but having gotten to know her, Tommy thought it might be true.

So now, things were all clear for him to date Quinn. There was just one minor obstacle in front of them- sex.

Considering how badly being the head of the celibacy club had turned out for her - the word irony would have had to be invented to deal with the situation Quinn had found herself in last year - Tommy had been somewhat amazed that, along with retaining her position as head of the Cheerios, she had rushed to regain that particular title. In fact, he called her on it a day ago.

"Abstinence only education doesn't work. You should be leading the charge, not heading backward," he'd argued. "Don't tell me your life wouldn't have been a lot better if Puckerman had remembered to use a condom."

"I'm trying to turn my life around, Tom," she reminded him. "There are certain things I believe in, and I think, given what happened to me last year, I have to take my old position."

"I'm not saying it's wrong for you, I'm saying it's wrong for teenagers in general," Tommy argued. "Teenagers are gonna have sex. They've been having sex since before we were born, and they're going to be having sex long after we become adults. We can't just take this position, and hope it works."

"You do realize this is the worst possible argument if you're trying to get yourself laid?" Quinn argued, slightly amused, which he took as a good sign.

"Quinn, I'm not an idiot. Considering what happened to you last year, I'm surprised you haven't bought a solid steel chastity belt," Tommy told her, only slightly sarcastically. "But this is one battle your church can't win. And you holding on to this position makes you look like the worst kind of hypocrite."

Quinn considered this for a moment. "You're not trying to tell me you don't think this way?" she asked, curiously

"I'm seventeen. Looking at linoleum makes me want to have sex," he told her honestly "But I honestly never thought I'd have a legitimate opportunity to until my freshman year of college at least. There, being smart doesn't automatically get me shoved into a locker."

Quinn looked a little confused at this remark, as well she might. "I'm speaking hypothetically, of course," he told her. "Though ever since it became the public knowledge about my choice of locker room humor, I've been looking over my shoulder every minute or so."

"You changed the subject," Quinn told him.

"I'd kind of forgotten what it was," he admitted sheepishly.

"Your whole argument about me being head of the celibacy club; this isn't some kind of elaborate method to get me to spread my legs for you?"

Hearing such blunt talk from Quinn Fabray was more than a little bracing. "Quinn, you are incredibly hot, and my last statement about sex was very accurate. That said, I think we're well matched in other ways than honesty. You definitely don't _want _to have sex, and, for the immediate future, I don't _need _to have sex. This entire talk about your being head of the celibacy club is me gently to draw you back towards reality."

That had settled the issue, and the two of them felt more than free to hide in empty classrooms to make out.

What he hadn't told Quinn was that he had been trying to establish the moral high ground rather than deal with a problem that had been bothering him ever since he and Quinn had started dating. The fact was Tommy hadn't entirely been honest with that last statement. He did need to have sex- he just wasn't sure that he could.

It was for that reason more than any other that he had gone back to the therapist he'd only gone to see twice since he'd joined glee. His mood and spirit were better enough that Dr. Sternin had thought that he could reduce the number of times a month he saw her. It was the other part of his therapy that made him move up the appointment this month.

It was very hard to tell from Dr. Lilith Sternin's face whether or not she was ever pleased about something, but she did seem to be impressed at how much his socialization skills had improved over the last few months.

"While I wouldn't have expected this kind of social program to kind of thing that worked for you, you have made a remarkable amount of progress recently," the doctor told him.

"Did you once tell me that you intend to avoid using those kinds of words?" Tommy asked. "Something about them being false modifiers or whatever?"

"You're right," Dr. Sternin replied. "Forgive me for gushing. It's just two months ago, you weren't looking forward to going back for junior year. And now you have this new group of friends, you're performing in front of the whole high school, and you're dating? I've never been found of the whole science fiction school of work, but frankly, I'm having a hard time believing that you haven't been replaced by some extraterrestrial entity. Because that would be a far more logical possibility that this kind of quantum leap."

Tommy was pretty sure that he'd been insulted, but because this was the kind of atmosphere his therapist recommended, he decided to level with her a bit. "Frankly, I don't feel like the same person a lot of the time," he admitted. "That actually bothers me a little. Ever since I started Glee, I haven't felt like my old self, and I didn't have a problem with who I was before."

"Well, you are a teenager. It's part of your chemical makeup," Dr. Sternin paused. "My son Frederick, he went through a similar series of changes when he was about your age. Only he went in the opposite direction. Got his ear pierced, and started to dress like a Goth. It was a tad unsettling. "

Tommy's doctor was the kind of a person who would regulate wearing brighter colors as a sign of psychological turmoil. If she really felt this way...

He shrugged this off. This was a distraction as to why he'd come here. "It's actually that last little bit I need help with."

Dr. Sternin came back. "I thought your generation knew everything they needed to know about sexual congress by the time they were eight."

It was this kind of forthrightness that made him glad he was seeing his doctor in the first place. "Believe me, no one is less eager to discuss sex with you than I am," he told her earnestly. "And I'm nowhere near ready to have sex yet. What I needed to discuss was what happens when I am."

In fact, Tommy liked the idea of discussing sex with an adult only slightly more than the idea of advanced dental surgery. But he didn't have a real choice in the matter.

"If this is about your medication, I have to be honest the particular regiment you're on has probably been helping you make so much progress," the doctor told him. "And I am loathe to change on someone unless there is a valid reason. Do you believe the medication has diminished your sex drive?"

There it was. "Is it possible that it can?" he countered.

"Certain combinations of antidepressants can have the effect of a diminished libido," Dr. Sternin's detachment was kind of bothering him now, "but the only way to be certain is if you had a lack of ability to perform. And you've just told me that you have been avoiding that very situation."

He felt like one of those animals on slides they examined in biology, the insects that were pinned there for the world to poke and prod at. "There... isn't...another way... to find out..?" he asked slowly.

Dr. Sternin had to be aware of his discomfort, but she seemed unmoved by how her patient was behaving, "This isn't the kind of thing I could do blood work on," she told him. "I realize how uncomfortable you are talking about this, but I can't make bricks without clay."

He had to be glowing redder than a cherry blossom. "When Quinn and I are, you know, making out, I haven't been able to get, you know..."

"Aroused?"

"I don't know whether that's normal or not, especially since it's fine, when I, you know.."

"Masturbate?"

"Christ, Doc, you know how hard it is for me to talk about these things!" Tommy burst out.

"I am, which is why I thought I'd expedite the process," Dr. Sternin's tone changed. "This isn't an easy subject for many of my adult patients to talk about. I can't imagine how difficult it must be for you to put into words."

"I never thought this would be an issue before," he admitted. "Hell, I figured the Indians had a better chance of winning another world series before I had anything resembling a girlfriend. I'm as surprised as anyone."

"And now that it is, how does it feel?"

This was the easiest thing he'd been asked all session. "It feels great," Tommy told her. "A lot easier than performing in front of hundreds of people."

"And you wouldn't want to do anything to ruin this relationship?" Dr. Sternin could be very interrogative in their sessions.

"of course not."

"Then why are you trying to find problems where there are none?' she asked. "You don't want to have sex, neither does she. Do you know how many couples your age break up for exactly this reason?"

He didn't answer, but he knew a rhetorical question when he heard one.

"You're in agreement right now. When you seem to be in a solid place. This may become an issue down the road, so worry about down the road," Dr. Sternin told him. "You like the rest of your life as it. Changing your medication may risk that."

"Believe me, I know that," Tommy muttered.

"So I repeat: why does this matter so much to you?"

The next day, he was preparing himself for what he knew wasn't going to be an easy conversation with Quinn. As it turned out, a lot happened that day that none of the guys in Glee were prepared for.

It seemed like a good surprise at first. The girls seemed to nail "Livin' On A Prayer' so intensely, he began to wonder whether there was something seriously wrong about the battle of the sexes. They hadn't even really chosen what song they were going to do, and in the same amount of time, they'd put all this together. Rachel Berry had to have some kind of demon working inside her.

Before the girls could take their final bows, Coach Sylvester came in with the apparent nonsequiteur that Coach Bieste had, without any real notification, resigned, and that somehow the football team was responsible.

Then he heard why, and wished immediately that he hadn't. Tommy knew that he shouldn't be the type that made judgments based on first impressions, but the first time he had seen Coach, he had been certain that she was a man in drag. After learning otherwise, he had pretty much dropped her from his day- he wasn't a big football fan in general, and he didn't have enough school pride to care that McKinley was having its first winning season since the school had been founded. (And considering the effort he'd done to remain anonymous in the locker room incident, he wanted the coach to be thinking about him as little as possible.) So the fact that two members of the club were using Bieste as the mental equivalent of a cold shower really didn't concern him.

So when Mr. Schuster started chewing out the team members who were on New Directions, he mentally detached himself from the proceedings. They could contort this however they wanted to, but this really had nothing to do with him. That's what he thought, until Mr. Schuster ran him down as he got to his feet in a hurry after the official chewing out.

"You're awfully quiet about this."

"What did you expect? I'm not on the football team, and whatever I think about with my girlfriend is nobody's business," Tommy hoped he would let this go. But Schuster had the annoying habit of harping on issues that really weren't his problem. He had a real Jack Shephard vibe.

"Look, I realize that you're relatively new..."

"I am new to Glee. I have been going to McKinley the same as everybody else. In either case, I wouldn't care about hurting the feelings of someone I don't know, and will probably never cross paths with. Now, I am asking as politely as I can, please _let this go."_

Mr. Schuster let him leave. Unfortunately, he then proceeded to run into Quinn, not the first person he wanted to talk to. "Did you know about this?" she asked.

"It's called 'locker room talk' for a reason. In case you've forgotten, I'm not exactly hanging out with them."

He had hoped that would put a swift end to this conversation. Tommy really should've known better.

"So this whole thing isn't an issue with you?" Quinn demanded.

"Not Coach Bieste, no," The second he said it he knew he'd made a mistake. "Of all the potential problems we might face, could we deal with one that is relevant?"

"You think this relationship will have problems," Quinn still seemed to be having problems processing this.

"Every relationship has problems, the happy ones and the unhappy ones alike. My grandparents recently celebrated their fortieth wedding anniversary; you think they still don't argue late at night?" Tommy replied. "I don't know what the road ahead holds anymore than you do, but the fact is the last thing either of us should be concerned about the football coach's role in it. Okay?"

This did settle Quinn down a little. They started walking down the hall together, and then stopped about fifty feet later. Kurt was coming out of the guy's locker room, looking shell-shocked. "Now what?"

It was, of course, a monumentally stupid question to ask. Even someone who did his best to avoid hearing gossip, Tommy knew how Karofsky had twice slammed Kurt into a locker in the past two days. He had been meaning to raise the issue with Puck, but that might not have the best timing, considering the issue that had just arisen with the Coach. Some kind of confrontation had been coming, and considering that Karofsky could probably throw him through a window, he was amazed that Kurt was, at least, physically undamaged.

The two of them practically ran over to Kurt. Since "are you okay?" sounded like the dumbest question either of them could possibly ask, Tommy settled for something blunter: "Did he hurt you?"

Kurt blinked a couple of times. "Excuse me?"

"Karofsky. Did that bastard hurt you?"

"Not this time," Kurt seemed to be coming back down to earth.

Quinn knew enough to realize something was wrong. "Should we get a teacher?"

"_No." _That brought him back to reality. "Believe me, that wouldn't solve anything."

"Are you shitting me?" Tommy demanded.

"Look, it's not that I'm not glad you care, but this is something I have to solve by myself."

Like many of their fellow performers, Tommy and Quinn would spent the next several weeks trying to figure out what the hell what exactly was going on between Kurt and Karofsky. Tommy in particular, would spend the next few weeks trying to figure out why the dynamic between them had changed so dramatically. Kurt was clearly frightened, but there was something else in his behavior that none of the others could understand. Tommy tried to chalk it up to the fact that he had only recently become Kurt's friend, but when he talked about it later with both Mercedes and Rachel, probably the closest people to Kurt in the whole school, they said that they had no idea either.

"I just don't get what he's doing," Mercedes told them. "He buries his hurt better than anyone I know, but this..."

"It's like he's trying to protect Karofsky," Rachel would say, "but I can't think of a single reason why."

Neither could Tommy. What on earth could Kurt have in common with this human piece of garbage?

Quinn managed to get an answer out of him the next day during the lunch. She had to push a little, but not as much as she'd thought she would have too.

"I may have mentioned when we were rehearsing that I've been spending some time in therapy." he told her flatly.

"It's not that big a deal," she told him. "My mom told me to talk to a therapist this summer. She said that she didn't think Miss Pillsbury would cut it given what I'd been through."

_Your mother is smarter than I thought. _Tommy wisely kept this bit to himself. "It's a bit more complicated than that. The first few months after I... was settling in with my grandparents, I had a lot of trouble sleeping. They thought I need to talk with somebody, so I've been in therapy since I was eleven. Not always with the same one. Finally had to settle on one near Cleveland.

"That's your big secret? Gotta tell you, not as big as the buildup."

"Once you see what's in the hatch, the mystery loses a lot of its appeal," Tommy admitted. "It took them nearly a dozen kinds of meds before they finally came up with a combination that keeps me... balanced. Even now, it's not a perfect combination. And there are some side effects."

Quinn considered this for a moment or two. "Does those one of those side effects happen to be ... you know.." It was odd seeing the forthright Cheerio at something of a loss for words.

"A lack of lead in my pencil?" Tommy actually blushed a little saying this. "My doctor has told me that it might be one of them."

Quinn managed to finish connecting the dots, mercifully. "So that's why you seemed so sure that this thing with the Coach had nothing to do with you."

"I was hoping to go a lot longer without raising this issue," he admitted., "but my hand was kind of forced. Up until now I've considered my wellbeing as more important than any mojo I might need, and you've been more than reasonable about it. But I've gotta tell you, this has been a lot harder for me to deal with than I thought. What I'm trying to say... very ineptly... is that I care about you Quinn. More than I thought would be possible. Enough to make me want to do something as ridiculous as this."

She looked at him. "Is this your very messed up way of you trying to say that you love me?" Quinn asked.

"I may be," he told her. "But considering that happens a lot around New Directions, let's hope it doesn't fade before Sectionals."

She walked up to him, and kissed him. "I've been burned before. Twice in fact."

"Pretty sure I just gave you my heart on a silver platter," Tommy reminded her. "Let's just hope we can do this without hurting each other."

It was a nice sentiment. Unfortunately, by the time the school year was over, it would be ground into dirt.


End file.
